"A New Success for Rosemary"

By Louella O. Parsons

Cosmopolitan - March 1953

"The Stars Are Singing" overflows with such zippy exuberance that I am giving it the Cosmopolitan Citation for the best production of the month. Despite the title, the two feminine singers featured in this movie are not stars but newcomers. Their voices are excellent, but completely different types, and this vehicle is so carefully hitched to their special talents that it should make them stars. Their names are Anna Maria Alberghetti and Rosemary Clooney.

I expect it would be Rosemary, the "Come On-A-My House" girl, whom I would be most loudly applauding after seeing the film. A real charmer in person, Rosemary is tops with virtually every disc jockey in the country. Her records sell by the million.

I liked her in this, her film debut. She's sharp and fast, with a lively, expressive face. She sends across "Lovely Weather for Ducks" and "I Do, I Do, I Do" in a way that will set turntables spinning. Her clowning and dancing are highly satisfactory, too. But I found her a little lacking in warmth. This could be because she is contrasted in all of her scenes with sixteen-year-old Anna Maria Alberghetti.

Paramount has had this Italian-born coloratura soprano under contract for about three years. She appeared briefly with Bing Crosby in "Here Comes the Groom" and was loaned out for the Italian movie of Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera "The Medium."

In "The Stars Are Singing" she glows as effortlessly and romantically as a crescent moon. Paramount had the good sense to avoid the usual young-girl-singer clichés. She is not pathetic, the way Judy Garland used to be cast. Neither is she precocious, a la Deanna Durbin. But she can handle both Judy's and Deanna's kind of song. She does the mad scene from "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "Lovely Weather for Ducks" with equal skill and clarity. She looks like the newest object for the adoration of the younger movie public.

"The Stars Are Singing" enjoys an added distinction: It not only admits the existence of television, but comments upon it favorably. To me this makes great sense. But then, this whole production makes great sense, with its freshness, its casting, its humor, and its songs. I salute it.

Caption 1: Rosemary Clooney, who made "Come On-A-My House" a national expression, adds her special verve to "The Stars Are Singing."