Serenata a vallechiara

Designed to provide some enjoyable light entertainment, "Sun Valley Serenade" does just that. There's plenty of variety, with good comedy, good (sometimes excellent) musical numbers, and some winter outdoors scenes. The story is lightweight, but it's supposed to be, and it is sufficient to tie the rest together.

Sonja Henie brings energy and talent to her role as a war refugee who is taken in by a band member. John Payne is good enough, though he mostly allows Henie to take the spotlight, and plays off her and the situation around him. Milton Berle adds some amusing moments as the band's agent. Glenn Miller's band and the performers in the musical sequences get lots of screen time, making good use of most of it. In particular, the 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' number is quite a show-stopper.

The atmosphere is quite pleasant, the story is enough to keep things moving, and the variety of material fits together well. It's more than enough to make for an hour-and-a-half of worthwhile watching.

Milton Berle (Nifty) manages the Glenn Miller (Phil) band that includes piano player John Payne (Ted). They land a long-term gig with famous singer Lynn Bari (Vivian) in Sun Valley. Guess what – there's romance between Payne and Bari. However, before they depart for Sun Valley, Payne has to collect a war refugee child that he has undertaken to look after. Enter Sonja Henie (Karen). And she's not a child. Everyone goes to Sun Valley but Payne can only choose one woman. Or does the woman choose him?

The story is lightweight nonsense but the music is excellent. Every musical number is a highlight with the showstopper being Glenn Miller's "Chatanooga Choo Choo" which also includes a sequence with Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers. Wow! The film also serves up Sonja Henie and her ice skating spins. For me, the skating sequences aren't as powerful as the musical numbers, but they are still being performed by a 3 time Olympic gold medallist!

The film is funny and entertaining and contains some legendary performers. Definitely one to watch.

John Payne plays the pianist/arranger for a big band led by Glenn Miller and managed by Milton Berle. They pick up singer Lynn Bari enabling them to get a big contract in Sun Valley, Idaho, at which point, a past publicity stunt comes back to bite them. They offered to sponsor a war refugee, thinking taking care of a baby would be publicity, and now the refugee arrives... in the form a of fully grown-up Sonja Henie. For Henie, it's love at first sight with Payne, and she vows to break up Payne's relationship with Bari. (And we're supposed to sympathize with her!) There's some good scenery of Sun Valley, at least the best they could do in black-and-white, and some absolutely horrid rear-projection. With Glenn Miller around, you know the music is going to be top-notch; the movie introduced the Oscar-nominated "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". That number also offers a scene for a young Dorothy Dandrige and the Nicholas Brothers.

Like is often true in Fox musicals, this one is a split decision The story I give just a 5/10. However, the music, at 10/10, drags the total rating to 7/10 IMHO.

For the first time the 'Sun Valley Serenade' was shown in the USSR at the time of WW2. It was never forbidden by the Soviet censorship, so it could be watched in the following years as well.

The film made formidable impression on Soviet citizens. It conjured up 'the American dream' in which the USA appeared as a country where everything is excellent, all women are beautiful, life is extremely easy and cheerful, where money lies on the streets - bend down and take!

Opposite to that paradise picture they saw around them a surly Soviet reality, lack of liberty, empty shops, shabby life in overcrowded communal apartments where people had to stand in turns to get to WC, etc.

Surely, Stalin made a great mistake permitting his subjects to see this film.

A friend of mine watched this film 46 times. Glen Miller became the greatest composer to him. I saw it twice, and at the second time left the cinema long before the end.

That dream about America continued to live in hearts and minds of many people in the Soviet Union. It had been one of the factors which gave birth to the dissident movement, and at the end, made a contribution to the fall of Communism in Russia.

I'm sure that there are some people who participated in creation of the movie who are living now: do they know about their part in the History?

From the point of view of pure art, the rating, I think, is 6 out of 10.

You can have all the glamour and pastels of the MGM musical - for sheer fun, give me the Fox musicals, especially this one, Sun Valley Serenade, starring John Payne, Sonja Henie, Glenn Miller, Lynn Bari and Milton Berle.

For publicity, Nifty Allen (Berle), a band publicist, arranges for the band to adopt a refugee. When the refugee shows, she's a grown woman named Karen Benson (Henie) who immediately falls for her guardian, the bandleader, Ted (Payne).

She connives her way into the train that's taking the band to Sun Valley, where she quickly gets in between Ted and the band's singer, Vivian Dawn (Lynn Bari) whose claws come out in full force.

"Sun Valley Serenade" is filled with skiing, Glenn Miller music, and Henje's fabulous skating. By 1941, Henje was starring in her own ice show, and her skating in this film looks less dated technically than it does in earlier films. And there's no one today who can come close to her spin sequences.

I can't remember how it was done, but she skates on mirrored glass, and it looks great. This was an ideal role for Sonja - she gets to smile, skate and does not have to do anything too dramatic. Payne does well and sings pleasantly as her leading man.

One outstanding musical feature, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," a Miller standard, is performed first by Tex Beneke and the Miller singers and then - brilliantly - by Dorothy Dandrige and the Nicholas Brothers. This alone makes the film worth watching.

Delightful.