February 21, 1992 | With a strut to its walk and a lilt to its talk, and a crafty bit of whimsy up its sleeve, Hear My Song is a gloriously loony and exhilaratingly romantic comedy. At once madcap and heartfelt, it is sprinkled with a goodly portion of the very same pixie dust that made Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero such a mischievous delight. And like Local Hero, it is spiced with a tangy melancholy that somehow makes its comic moments all the more tasty.
Peter Chelsom, making his feature directorial debut, and Adrian Dunbar, leading player and co-author of the script, have conjured up a very special type of movie magic, casting their spell with an effortlessness that no doubt is more apparent than real. They take you on a merry, freewheeling jaunt that seems aimless only until they reach their final destination. When they finally do get around to wrapping things up, you can only marvel at how far you’ve gone, how much you’ve seen and how thoroughly you’ve enjoyed the journey.
Dunbar makes a sunny, funny rogue as Micky O’Neill, the seedy impresario of a second-rate Liverpool club with a largely Irish clientele. Micky is a born showman, but that’s of little help when he tries to show his customers the likes of Franc Cinatra, an aging singer who has ludicrously little in common with his famous namesake. Eager to increase his audience, and to impress the disapproving mother (Shirley-Ann Field) of his comely sweetheart, Nancy (Tara Fitzgerald), Micky books “Mr. X” (William Hootkins), a grandiloquent tenor who may or may not be Josef Locke, a popular singer who fled England years ago as a tax exile.
The bad news: Mr. X attracts, in addition to hundreds of paying customers, a grim police constable (David McCallum) obsessed with capturing Locke. The worse news: Mr. X is exposed as a fraud when he tries to get too friendly with one of Locke’s former sweethearts.
And the worst news of all: This particular former sweetheart is Nancy’s mother.
Right from the start, Hear My Song has an air of casually graceful loopiness, indicating that anything can happen and probably will. Two of Micky’s assistants pause from plastering advertising posters to dance a playful soft-shoe on a street corner — and are pleasantly surprised when a passer-by drops a coin in one of their hats. Later, after Micky decides to redeem himself by finding the real Jo Locke in rural Ireland, the impresario and his best buddy, Fintan (James Nesbitt), provide their own musical accompaniment for their road trip by breaking into song.
The secluded village where they actually find Locke seems like a far-flung suburb of Brigadoon, or at the very least an enchanted place where, as Fintan gravely insists, fairies work their spells. Ever rational in the face of irrationality, Fintan insists that he and Micky must turn their jackets inside-out to ward off danger.
Locke, grandly played by Ned Beatty with a potent mix of gruff bemusement and self-aware sadness, rules this magical domain like some modern-day Prospero. But even the larger-than-life myth has a vulnerably human side. Locke understands far too well what’s in store for Micky if the impresario doesn’t go back to the woman he loves. “And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Locke says. “Not even a contemptible little skitter like yourself.”
At heart, Hear My Song is a tale of redemption, bountifully generous in providing everyone —yes, even Franc Cinatra — with a second chance.
Micky is a fidgety, furtive con artist, unabashedly gleeful as he coats his low-rent sleaze with happy-go-lucky charm: “There are givers, and there are takers. And then there are those who find a kind of giving in their taking. That’s me.” And yet, for all that, Micky’s a good lad at heart, something Dunbar makes abundantly clear in his engaging and energetic performance. All he needs is to be shaken up a little bit. Or, perhaps, dangled from a cliff. Jo Locke is more than willing to provide either service.
Ned Beatty is splendid as Locke, dominating every scene in which he appears, and several more in which he’s nowhere to be seen. His Irish accent is subtle but persuasive, and his lip-synching is, if not flawless, aptly spirited. There is a real Jo Locke, by the way — the screenplay is very loosely based on events from his life. But the off-screen singing is done by Vernon Midgley, a tenor whose father, Walter Midgley, just happened to be one of the real Jo Locke’s rivals in performing during the 1940s and ‘50s.
Perky newcomer Tara Fitzgerald is a real find — you really believe that any man would traipse across the backroads of Ireland to win back her love. Shirley-Anne Field has a mature allure as the woman Locke left behind, then lived a very long time to regret it. And David McCallum is amusingly tenacious as someone else Locke left behind, but never regretted it for a moment.
