Chasing Rainbows

In 1930, MGM was still ironing out the kinks in its early sound pictures. "Chasing Rainbows" " is one of the earliest musicals that still has some of those kinks. It also shows the lesser quality of performers at the time. But this attention to musicals was paving the way for MGM's undisputed title as king of the musicals through the end of Hollywood's golden age in the early 1960s.

Although there had been singers and dancers with bands on stage, the cinema world had not used them until sound. So, finding the voices, dancers and musicians for films was part of the new challenge. And, interestingly, MGM also filmed part of this movie in Technicolor. The DVD I obtained from the WB Archive Collection has a reconstructed film without the color scenes. Three of those were of song and dance numbers. All the color segments were lost, so this rebuilt film has some black and white still photos showing the scenes that were shot in color.

This film has one other historical value. It's a very good depiction of the traveling stage shows. This was not vaudeville, but production of popular stage shows that traveled around the country to perform in towns that had stage theaters.

Most of the cast of this film weren't known much beyond the 1930s. But two of the main characters were, and it's their performances that make this film worth watching. Jack Benny serves as the stage manager, Eddie Rock. With the traveling show, his job was much more than that of the theater manager. He was also director for rehearsals, in charge of property, and overall supervisor and watchdog of the cast and crew. Benny's Rock is very good with some nice comedy.

The other well-known person is actress Marie Dressler, as Bonnie. She is responsible for the bulk of the comedy, and much of that is in an ongoing spat with Polly, the props manager. Polly Moran plays that role very well.

The female and male leads are Carlie Seymour and Terry Fay, played by Bessie Love and Charles King. Love was a big star of the last 15 years of silent films, and her career segued into sound. But, after a few of these early films with lead roles, she was relegated to mostly supporting roles. The evolution of sound pictures also brought a huge swarm of new talent as the studios searched for new stars with good voices. Some came from the live stage and a few from the silent films, but the large influx was mostly new faces in the 1930s.

Besides Dressler in this film, movie buffs will know the silent stars who transitioned and did as well or better than they had before. They included Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper, William Powell, the Barrymore's (John, Lionel and Ethel), Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, Jean Arthur, Myrna Loy, and Clark Gable. But for each one of those whose careers continued and blossomed from silent to sound, there were 100 who didn't. Not all were because of the sound itself, or their voices. Many had been in pictures for 20 years or more, and couldn't compete with the acting of new people. Some big names that made a few films in sound before they quit were Mary Pickford, Clara Bow and Douglas Fairbanks.

Some of the new talent that the 1930s brought ranged from Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, to Cary Grant, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Robert Taylor and Spencer Tracy on the male side. And some truly great actresses came to the screen in the 1930s, including Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, Kay Francis, Lucille Ball, Merle Oberon and Greer Garson.

Of course, across the pond - in the UK and all over Europe more stars were appearing in cinema.

Back to this film. Charles King could sing, but he wasn't anywhere near the talent that would be in the musicals within a couple of years. He was new to films himself, but acted as though he were in a silent film. He exaggerated his moves. His long pauses with a sour puss made him seem to be pouting. It's likely that directors and producers were having to adjust as well.

It's good to have something like this in an early major studio film to show the challenges that studios had in making major changes. My guess is that there wasn't another top singer to be found anywhere who had acted to put in the role of Terry Fay. King had just started in films in 1928 and had four films behind him - all musicals. He did much better in "The Broadway Melody" of 1929, where his song was good and acting just so-so. He made one more musical after this, also in 1930, then a handful more of non-musicals in small parts and his acting career was finished.

To give the feel of the traveling show, a couple of scenes show town or theater names between some snippets of very fast-moving trains. In one of those, the film gives the name of show playing. At the Nebraska Theatre, Xmas Week Dec. 22nd, "Good-Bye Broadway" is being performed. Another scene shows a sign of the Vermont Opera House.

Those who might enjoy this film are movie and history buffs. Most others would probably give up on it after a few minutes. Perhaps the missing Technicolor numbers would have lifted the film.

Here's a sample dialog exchange. Carlie Seymour, "Say, I've been through this so much with him, don't you think I'd better go in and talk to him - huh?" Eddie Rock, "Well, all right. If you wanna play Little Daniel in the lion's den, go ahead. But if he bites you, don't blame me."

It's really not fair to give a numerical score to this film, as it's NOT the "Chasing Rainbows" of 1930. That's because the Two-Color Technicolor portions of the film are missing and Turner Classic Movies substituted stills for the missing scenes! It's a crude way to try to reassemble the film--far from ideal, that's for sure.

"Chasing Rainbows" is a musical featuring Bessie Love and Charles King (who'd just starred together in the Oscar winning "Broadway Melody"). In addition to being a musical, Jack Benny (in one of his first films) as well as Polly Moran and Marie Dressler (both of which made a short series of comedies together following this film) are on hand to provide some comedy. Those familiar with Benny's 1940s-50s persona might have a hard time recognizing him, as here he is nothing like his radio and TV self. I'd seen him in a couple early shorts, so seeing him as a fast-talking sort of guy didn't surprise me.

The film finds Benny the leader of a touring Broadway-style review. Although Love and King are good friends, you have a strong impression that they are destined to be much more. But, in the meantime, dumb 'ol King's head is turned by a new leading lady (Nita Martan). You just KNOW that Nita is 100% bad and Bessie is a sweetheart, but it sure takes King a long time to recognize this. In fact, he is a bit too stupid to be real! In the meantime, there are lots of song and dance numbers, comedic interludes (which aren't all that funny) and various backstage vignettes. In fact, the plot isn't always all that important--it's more an excuse to feature the other acts.

As I said above, it's very hard to score this movie. It is rather old fashioned and derivative (an awful lot like "Broadway Melody") but good for 1929/1930. But the fact that it's missing so much of the film make it great viewing for total film nuts (like me) but not so great for everyone else. As I LOVE films from this era and don't mind the very dated style, I could highly recommend it to people like me....all six of us! By the way, this film was apparently made in 1929 and not released until 1930. Believe it or not, this is actually pretty easy to tell as sound technology improved quickly during the late 20s-early 30s and the film looks and sounds more like a 1929 production.

By the way, if you DO see this film, get a load of Bessie's laughing sequence--she sounds positively demented! It's easy to see it's an early talkie, as later directors never would have done the scene that way.

"Chasing Rainbows" (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1929-30), directed by Charles F. Reisner, was the studio's attempt in duplicating the success of its very first all sound musical titled "The Broadway Melody" (1929), that won the Academy Award as Best Picture. To review "Chasing Rainbows," one cannot help but compare this to "The Broadway Melody," a backstage story revolving around a sister act (Bessie Love and Anita Page) that nearly breaks up on account of their love for the same leading man (Charles King). Aside from the re-teaming of Love and King, this new edition, set in small town theaters during a road show tour instead of the Broadway theater district, substitutes troublesome leading ladies over kid sisters to complicate matters. Love, whose climatic crying scene from "The Broadway Melody" that earned her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, attempts doing same thing here with her moment of hysterics, this time with laughter. As much as the situations are basically the same, the results aren't. Although the film's title might indicate an old favorite of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" as one of its highlight production numbers, it actually began production as "Road Show" a title more appealing to the plot at hand.

Following the opening title credits over the visual of a passing train, and minus any underscoring, the plot gets underway with the closing of the road show performance of "Good-bye Broadway" where the cast gathers together in the big finale. Eddie Brock (Jack Benny), the stage manager, gets the company ready for their next engagement in another town. Terry Fay (Charles King), the leading man, is blind by the true love of Carlie Seymour (Bessie Love), his partner of five years. Upset over Peggy (Gwen Lee) quitting the show and leaving with another man, Terry threatens suicide until Brock acquires Daphne Wayne (Nita Martan) as the show's new leading lady. Terry falls for Daphne, who, in reality, is using him for her own professional gain. After Carlie discovers Daphne carrying on an affair with Don Cordova (Eddie Phillips), her former leading man, she tries to warn Terry, who refuses to listen. Even after he realizes Carlie accusations are correct, Terry, still blinded by Daphne's presence, marries her, complicating matters all around.

For the motion picture soundtrack, songs (*indicating two-strip Technicolor sequences) include: "Happy Days Are Here Again" (sung by chorus); "Pure But Honest" (sung by Marie Dressler); "Lucky Me and Lovable You" (sung by Charles King); "Do I Know What I'm Doing?" (sung by Nita Martan, reprized by Marie Dressler and Polly Moran); *"Everybody Tap" (performed by Bessie Love); *"Love Ain't Nothing But the Blues" (sung by Charles King); "Lucky Me and Lovable You" (reprised by Charles King); *"My Dynamic Personality" (sung by Marie Dressler) and *"Happy Days Are Here Again" (sung by chorus). Considering its bright score, only "Happy Days Are Here Again," twice performed briefly, remains relatively known to this day. "Lucky Me and Lovable You," the film's best song, used for underscoring during the tender moments between King and Love, did not recapture the similar mood and qualities of "You Were Meant For Me" that was introduced in "The Broadway Melody." While "Chasing Rainbows" improves technically over its primitive production style of "The Broadway Melody," which simply lacked the brighter moments supplied by Marie Dressler and Polly Moran in their usual feuding pal roles. Dressler, shortly before achieving super stardom following her Academy Award winning performance in "Min and Bill" (1930), not only gets a chance to sing, but shares a drunken scene with Moran, cast here as the wardrobe woman. Fans of Jack Benny's radio and TV show can get an early glimpse of the popular comedian before reaching 39 playing a straight man providing some funny one-liners here and there.

Of all the musicals produced during the early sound period, "Chasing Rainbows" is truly a forgotten one. Due to the missing two-strip Technicolor musical sequences, shortening its original length from 100 minutes to 86, "Chasing Rainbows" has never been televised, at least until the era of Turner Classic Movies following its 1984 premiere where this musical became part as its very own film preservation series where still photos for the missing sequences were inserted with sub-titles indicating its actions filling in the void. With that said, "Chasing Rainbows," in spite of Charlie King's occasional annoying character portrayal, proves not only one of the more worthier rediscoveries of the early sound era, but a good companion piece to the much better known "Broadway Melody." (** curtain calls)

I won't repeat other reviews; I agree with almost all comments. What I'd like to address is the unprofessional editing. In one scene actors apparently are listening to Jack Benny lecturing but without sound. This is clearly a medium reaction shot, meant to have Jack's voice over. Poly Moran stands in a doorway without moving for about three seconds before action begins. An actor enters a door from the outside - you can't see the door - and then the camera pauses. Then on the inside we see the door continues to open. At the trimmed fade out you see the door start to open again. This is an A picture made by an A studio. Such gaffes are unforgivable.

A troupe of musical comedy performers travel about the country, forever CHASING RAINBOWS of success & happiness.

This early MGM musical, considering its age and the obvious limitations brought on by the new sound technology, does a fair job in entertaining its audience. Although the film features a song that would become a classic ('Happy Days Are Here Again' by Milton Ager & Jack Yellen) it is on the strength of a couple of its performances that its modest success is based.

Pert & pretty Bessie Love is wonderful as a sweet young singer who adores her leading man. She is completely natural with the microphone and exhibits a tender talent which was never allowed to grow to its full potential in talking films. While good throughout, the scene in which she dissolves into hysterical laughter upon hearing some emotionally devastating news is absolutely frightening in its power.

As her love interest, Charles King doesn't fare nearly so well. This is largely due to the fact that his romantic trials & tribulations - involving women other than Miss Love - are of no interest whatsoever and his reaction to them show his character to be both shallow & immature, critical character flaws in a film's hero. King was among MGM's very first musical stars, but his movie career would be very brief, lasting only from 1928 to 1930, for a total of six films.

Playing the stage manager, Jack Benny is the emotional calm point around which the activity swirls. He has very little to do besides move the plot along. His brotherly interest in Miss Love seems platonic and Jack is left out of the film's romantic action.

While not given top billing, Canadian Marie Dressler steals the film as an aging comedienne with too much past. Using her large, homely face & shapeless body to great advantage, she grabs the viewers' attention and never lets go. At this point in her career Dressler was right on the cusp of gaining enormous personal success and within a year she would become Hollywood's biggest star. Even in such a relatively routine role, such as she fills here, Dressler reveals the tremendous heart & common touch which would be the secret to her celebrity. (For an extra chuckle, pay close attention during the opening long shot where the cast sings the last few bars of 'Happy Days' - just to the right of center screen is the Marvelous Marie, swaying across the stage with elephantine grace.)

Appearing as a drunken wardrobe lady, the ubiquitous Polly Moran makes another appearance as Dressler's sidekick. Short, spunky & buxom, Polly was always fun to watch - but never more so than when teamed with Marie.

In a small role, George K. Arthur plays Benny's gynandrous assistant; an important silent comedy star for MGM, this Scottish-born actor would soon sink into talkie anonymity.

It should be noted that the film's original Technicolor sequences - including several songs and the entire conclusion - are now completely missing.