| I Dream Too Much | |
| Director: | John Cromwell |
| Producer: | Pandro S. Berman |
| Screenplay: | James Gow Edmund H. North |
| Starring: | Lily Pons Henry Fonda Eric Blore Lucille Ball |
| Music: | Jerome Kern Dorothy Fields Max Steiner (incidental) |
| Cinematography: | David Abel |
| Editing: | William Morgan |
| Distributor: | RKO Radio Pictures |
| Runtime: | 97 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $627,000[1] |
| Gross: | $640,000 |
I Dream Too Much is a 1935 American romantic comedy film directed by John Cromwell. It stars Henry Fonda and Lily Pons, as well as Lucille Ball in an early supporting role. It has been described as a "somewhat wispy operetta."[2] Songs are by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Sound Recording (Carl Dreher).[3]
Annette Monard Street is an aspiring singer, who falls in love with and marries Jonathan Street, a struggling young composer.
Jonathan pushes her into a singing career, and she soon becomes a star. Meanwhile, Jonathan is unable to sell his music, and he finds himself jealous of his wife's success.
Concerned about their relationship, Annette uses her influence to get Jonathan's work turned into a musical comedy. Once she achieves this, she then retires from public life in order to raise a family.
Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a poor review. Greene criticized Jerome Kern's musical score as "pompous and middle-aged" in contrast to the times, which were more in line with fresh musicians like Cole Porter. He did compare Pons favorably to Grace Moore, describing her personality as "less ponderous". The only portion of the film that Greene found to provide a light touch was that of the performing seal.[4]
The film recorded a loss of $350,000.[1]