El amor no muere

I can't add much to the raves already posted.

The first song I remember my mother singing to me was "Smiling Through" ("But through all the long years, when the clouds brought their tears, those two eyes of blue came smiling through at me"), and she'd tell me the movie's story. I taught the song to my children and grandchildren, but until recent years there was no way to get a copy of the movie.

I thought I wanted the Jeannette MacDonald version because of her beautiful voice, but it was back ordered and only this one was available--lucky for me. It seems to be everyone's favorite of the three.

The wedding scene is a masterpiece--understated and heartbreaking, but I'm finally able to handle it. It's that very last scene that gets me every time. Best kind of tears, though: the kind you're "smiling through".

Norma Shearer, like Irene Dunne, is not only beautiful to look at but irresistibly likable.

What a charming film this is. It's definitely for the lover of romance, and if that's the type of film you like, this one is easy to love – it has one strong scene after another, great acting, and that wonderful feeling of how magical, strong, and yet fragile love can be. Norma Shearer's character has been raised by her uncle (Leslie Howard) after being orphaned as a child. Howard himself has suffered the loss of his wife on his wedding day, and has been pining for her ever since. One evening while Shearer is taking shelter in an old mansion with her boyfriend (Ralph Forbes) during a thunderstorm, she happens to meet another man (Frederic March), and the two are instantly drawn to one another. Things get complicated when it's revealed that March's father (also played by March) was the one who caused the death of Howard's wife (also played by Shearer). Also threatening things is March being scheduled to go off to war.

I loved the way the story was told, with a flashback, so that it was a bit like a movie within a movie. It also felt like love playing out across generations, and recurring, with all the same depth of feeling. Some of the scenes evoke a sentimental or poignant feeling – in the cemetery, remembering love lost – and others evoke that wonderful feeling of falling in love. The mansion scene, with that delicious ambiance of cobwebs, a fire, an old portrait, and with Shearer and March toasting one another after he finds an old bottle of port, is fantastic. "Any old port in a storm," he quips. The two have such chemistry together. Their bike ride and time in the teahouse is also sweet, after he had essentially admitted to stalking her ("you're a window-peeper", she teases). Towards the end of that scene Shearer says, almost breathlessly, "Love is ... something you feel. It just happens. You can't do anything about it. If I loved somebody, I'd love him forever", as the camera dissolves on the old woman who has fallen asleep.

I'm usually not big on Leslie Howard, but he was great too, and his scenes with the other character Shearer played were wonderful. He says to her "Wouldn't it be marvelous if every time I opened my eyes for the rest of my life, you were there?" She says: "I will be." And he says: "And always as beautiful as you are tonight?", the last bit echoing March's toast in the mansion. It's all the more touching seeing these kinds of scenes in an old movie where the actors have all passed away, but are captured in these moments, so ephemeral and fleeting, and yet with feeling so strong and dramatic.

Shearer's character's personality is a romantic, and the plot allows her to express her love with such urgency, because March is going away. It is reserved and proper, with almost all of the characters (except March's father / evil March and his drinking problem) having a sense of decorum and grace, and yet these two are allowed to express their love so freely and fiercely ... it's a great combination. As she says when he's going away, "It's no use, I'll always love him. I'm just that sort of a fool. I have no pride", any hopeless romantic can identify.

March's dual role may remind you a bit of his role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (though this is of course two characters), and as the film plays out, you may also be reminded of "An Affair to Remember". There is real angst here, from those whose love is unrequited for reasons that simply can't be explained – love happens or it doesn't – to those who suffer tragedy. When Shearer and March must part, she says with real passion, "I'm yours and you're mine; I want that to be true before you go" implying marriage and sex, but he demurs, torn.

And yet, how magical it is; the eyes, the smiles, the banter, the embraces. This would be a great movie to curl up in front of with someone you love.

Sir John (Leslie Howard) is devastated and disgusted as his niece Kathleen (Norma Shearer), a young woman living with him since her parents died in her infancy, falls in love with Kenneth (Fredric March), the son of the man who, in a jealous rage, killed Sir John's bride to be on their wedding day. As Kenneth is about to join his company at the front in World War I, Kathleen is torn between her filial duty towards her uncle and her love for Kenneth.

Sidney Franklin's film is the quintessential tearjerker, one that I have dreamed of watching all my adult life, and tonight I finally managed. Not many films outlast those sorts of expectations, I found recently that 'Sevent Heaven' was relatively feeble-minded, not the film I had been looking forward to.

'Smilin' Through' triumphs though, soaringly so. The film is not only sumptuous in decor and cinematography, but has a real heart and real intelligence. I loved the way that almost every scene takes place in a garden with burgeoning flora, drooping flowers, heavy with romantic regret and sexual portent. One could almost smell the dizzy perfume of the plants. And I admired the way that Sidney Franklin distinguishes so clearly and yet not demonstratively between the way that young love professes itself in the 1860's, the time of John's and Moonyeen's courtship, and the war years with Kathleen's and Ken's romance. Franklin, in his direction, subtly underlines the tender dewy-eyed romanticism of the old days, "misty, water-colored mem'ries" indeed, with Kathleen perpetually wearing her wedding gown, even in her scenes as a ghost. And in the modern story we have an altogether more practical couple, acting in the context of a world war, with the far-away guns and canons sending rumblings through the village, sending windows and panes rattling. Kathleen in the modern story is more earthy and doesn't, in this pre-Code Hollywood picture, disguise how she is longing for her sexual union with Ken: "By the time I'm through with you, you won't be able to fight anyway", she claims.

The acting is a chapter unto itself. I was never a fan of Leslie Howard's, and although it must be said that his part is probably the least interesting in the film, he conveys an endearing boyishness in the 1860's scenes, easy-going and infectious. Fredric March strikes up a marvelous rapport with Norma Shearer, sending off sparks of a loose energy that seem almost improvised, certainly captivating. Their scenes today should even today serve as must-see footage for acting students. March shows glimpses of the impressive character actor he was to become, and Shearer is luminous and entirely lovable, great performances.

The perfect genre piece, destined to give you the most delicious heartache.

I cannot imagine a movie being classier than this one. The lilting mood of the story is felt all the way through the film until its closing moments. The swell of music followed by the appearance of a 'The End' card, like a surrendered afterthought on the screen, make Smilin' Through seem as if MGM meant to deliver a movie on a cloud in 1932. Fredric March and Norma Shearer's conversations have a sense of 'sway' or dance about them. From her refusal to see his soldier off at the train station then following him there in the very next scene to his simple but imploring, "There's a war on, and I'm in it!", the well-drawn characters demonstrate nobility, humor, and attachment to each other that are poetic in their simplicity. Even an elderly man, as painted by Leslie Howard's portrayal, commits his loving then selfish then last surprising acts with grace. Director, Sidney Franklin motions us into the fold to experience the drama alongside the characters with his special touches: distant gunfire rattling windows, doors shutting on a church shooting while we wait for them to be reopened to discover how the characters are reacting. No leotards or shades of pink are glimpsed here, but surely we have been to a ballet of sorts.

Smilin' Through (1932) : Brief Review -

Two eternal romances explained very well with one of the most tragic scenes of the time. Even though the film is titled Smilin', I believe there was hardly anything to smile at. It was more of a tragic romance for its time, or quite possibly all time. I wasn't aware that one of the biggest conflicts from one of the most popular romances, "Love Affair" (1939)-some people know it because of its remake, "An Affair To Remember" (1957)-was actually taken from this Sidney Franklin flick. Even that goes back in time, as Sidney himself remade his own silent film of 1922. Remember that accident thing from Love Affair? Why Terry couldn't see Michel and had to conceal her disability? Well, that was picked right from here-with a gender switch. Smilin Through has multiple layers to the characters and the love story. If I can say so, it was one of the rare films to have the three leading actors in a double role (Leslie Howard was a single character, but divided into two age groups). The film is about Kathleen, who falls in love with a young soldier, Kenneth, but her uncle, Sir John, forbids her because Kenneth's father killed his soon-to-be bride, Moonyean, on their wedding day. Kathleen still goes on to meet and fall in love with Kenneth before he is sent to War for four years. After his return, Kathleen is devastated by his rude behaviour and mourns her lost love. Now here comes redemption for Uncle John, who has been attempting salvation for years to meet his dead love. The screenplay does a nice trick here, as we see a happy ending and a sad ending coming together and leaving us with mixed feelings. Leslie Howard has played a part that other young fellas might have rejected for pride. He put them all to shame. Norma looks lovely, and Fredric is fine in both roles. Franklin did not have to do much except remove some dated chunks, and he did exactly that. A big triumph for a remake, and what a tragic cobweb of love stories it was for its time.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.