La vita a passo di danza

When June Haver finally got the top musical role of her career, it was Ray Bolger who stole the show. A more accomplished musical actress might have made this musical more than a routine, pleasant backstage story that is actually an incomplete bio of the great Broadway star. The production numbers are fine, the supporting cast is excellent and the technicolor glows--but it's never more than a routine musical with June Haver appealing as the talented singer/dancer who became a Broadway favorite and Gordon MacRae in fine voice as the man she loves but ultimately loses to an untimely accident. Not great, but worth seeing for Ray Bolger's inimitable way with a dance step in some show-stopping routines. Nice supporting players include Rosemary DeCamp, Charles Ruggles and S.Z. ("Cuddles") Sakall.

Colorful but with only a cursory acquaintance with the actual facts of Marilyn Miller's life this is an enjoyable musical but worthless as biography.

June Haver is sunny and beautiful as the legendary star but misses giving any real sense of who she was. Charlie Ruggles and Rosemary DeCamp do what they can with thinly written roles as her parents and S. Z. Sakall does his usual charming sputtering and cheek slapping.

Gordon McRae, portraying perhaps the one character with any semblance to reality, Frank Carter, Miller's first husband sings wonderfully as always. The real standout is Ray Bolger who manages to inject some real feeling into his part and gets to showcase his talents well.

A very prettied up version of the facts this still is chock full of great songs well performed and on that basis a good show.

I was not at all surprised to read that "Look for the Silver Lining" is a highly sanitized bio-pic. After all, Hollywood has a long, long history of making biographies that omit all the wicked stuff in favor of glitz and entertainment. A couple such films that come to mind are "Night and Day" (which bears little similarity to the life of Cole Porter...especially since he was gay) and "Love Me or Leave Me" (which makes Ruth Etting seem almost as sweet as Mary Poppins). To Hollywood, history was just a starting point in 1930s-50s films and a little embellishment (or A LOT) was just part of making the story marketable. Because of this, it's usually bad if the viewer thinks this is a history lesson! In fact, a film of the era that accurately tells the story is the exception rather than the rule. So, if you want to learn about the life of Marilyn Miller, I suggest you read a biography or skim the internet!

This film begins with Marilyn (June Haver) an established star about to do a new stage production. She seems a bit under the weather...and the film soon flashes back to her youth before she became famous. You then see her life unfold...or at least the studio's version of her life. It's all very slick, very entertaining and filled with nice scenes and very nice song and dance numbers...though as I said above, it's terribly sanitized and inoffensive. I also thought a couple scenes were overdone (such as when Mr. Miller had the mumps...talk about overacting!) and the sledgehammer symbolism with the broken elephant was just too much. Still, inoffensive and enjoyable provided you don't care about the many liberties the story took on the true life of Ms. Miller. This is especially true of the final portion--which bore no similarities to Miller's life at all.

Typical, Hollywood, 1940s, musical biopic. You take what, by all accounts, was a sassy, lusty, four times married (five if you count the engagement that was going to result in marriage were it not for an untimely death brought on by botched nasal passage surgery) alcoholic gal and run her through Will Hays' and Joe Breen's handy dandy whitewash, censorship, bowdlerization, airbrush machine and, voila ! She comes out a G rated bore. As is this film. Aside from two great Ray Bolger hoofin numbers and one good Jerome Kern song (the title song) it's pretty much fast forward city. As for June Haver, there seem to be glimmers of talent in there somewhere, but David Butler sure aint the director to bring them out. C minus.

Cherry10 could not have known Marylin Miller in the 60's. Marylin Miller died in April, 1936. She died after complications from sinus surgery. The movie only touches on this at the beginning when she became dizzy while dancing at the rehearsal. The movie takes some artistic license in presenting only "the sunny side of life" for Marylin, with the exception of the death of her first husband, Frank Carter. She actually went on to marry three more times. The movie succeeded in bringing an entertaining musical to the screen and did serve as a showcase for Ray Bolger. June Haver was able to keep up with him and did shine in her dance numbers.