Painting the Clouds with Sunshine

This color remake of the landmark 'Gold Diggers' series of musicals of the 1930s is a pretty limp effort, despite individual bits that are excellent. 'Cuddles' Sakall is present for his usual Bavarian doubletalk, partnered, for some reason, with Wallace Ford playing a knife-throwing dessert rat. Dennis Morgan, tailing off in his Warners' career, plays the other guy. Basically this is a typical Warners musical of the era: a lightweight, retread plot and songs lifted from the catalogue. All it misses is Doris Day and she turned down the script.

The real point of this movie is the dance numbers, featuring lead Gene Nelson with choreography by Warners' stalwart dance director Leroy Prinz. Nelson never really became a star, but he was as fine a dancer as any, averaging much more athletic and balletic than headliners Astaire and Kelly; his signature step was a leap onto a table from the floor. Prinz directs him perfectly with monochromatically colored lights that allow him to act and move without words. 'Birth of the Blues' is the real highlight of the film.

Alas, aside from those moments, it's pretty much of a rote production. See it once for the dance numbers and be done.

Jack Warner handed this script to Doris Day, but she begged out. It was too much like the other films she had made at Warners (she made "Lullaby of Broadway" that same year and "Tea For Two" right before that). Virgina Mayo, who was free, loved doing musicals, so she stepped in and Dennis Morgan's name went up one step. Doris, by this time was extremely popular, so she would have gotten billing over Morgan.

This was colorful (I saw it once) and Mayo looked incredible, as usual.

Day, after "Calamity Jane" got "picky" about parts. She also turned down "The Helen Morgan Story" with Paul Newman, "The Jazz Singer" with Danny Thomas and WB had planned "Miss America" for Doris and Virginia, a musical.

I have to say that I would never have watched this films by some of the reviews I read online, but glad I took a chance. It is a delightful film! I will admit I was pleasantly surprised with how much I did like it. I enjoyed it so much that I purchased a DVD copy for my own film library. Yes the story is corny by today's standards, but then again I can only take so much of 'today's standards'. This is a light, funny and wonderfully musical film that has a beginning, a middle, and an end unlike most films that are produced today. Love Virginia Mayo, who looks more beautiful in color than you could imagine.Dennis Morgan sings...who could ask for more! A great movie for a rainy afternoon...nothing more than pure entertainment!

Painting The Clouds With Sunshine casts Virginia Mayo, Lucille Norman, and Virginia Gibson as a singing trio who disappointed in love go west to Las Vegas. That city was just starting to develop as the sin city capital of America although it was a decade or so until the Rat Pack really put it on the map. The clubs in Las Vegas, Reno, and other areas in the state were just starting to attract show business acts like you see the women portray here. Singer Dennis Morgan with a bad gambling addiction is also there and so is Gene Nelson who is a hoofer who has a terrible secret, he's a Back Bay Boston millionaire.

Terrible at least in the eyes of his cousin Tom Conway who wants to save him and the family reputation from Nelson's chosen career. Of course he falls for one of the women as well.

I saw elements here from films like Moon Over Miami and Goldiggers Of 1933 and even Donovan's Reef in Painting The Clouds With Sunshine. The musical numbers were nice, but nothing terribly new. The score was taken from a variety of composers, I'm sure the Brothers Warner owned the rights to them. The film is a remake of the first Goldigger films both of which may be lost.

Everybody here has done better work.

Dennis Morgan stars in this color (Technicolor !) thang with Virginia Mayo. Big Yawn. Lots of musical numbers that don't really have anything to do with the plot, but give the stars a platform. The only good thing about this film is that Sandor Sakall is in here, for comic relief. (he only worked a couple more years after this one... died in 1954.) The paper thin plot here is that the girls need to find money to help Uncle Felix (Sakall) in Vegas, so they bring rich guy "Ted" along (Gene Nelson). Mayo, Lucille Norman, and Virginia Gibson are "The Dillon Sisters". There's an operatic version of "With a Song in My Heart".... too bad they couldn't do a fun, contemporary version. I thought the windows were going to shatter. They really rely on Sakall to carry this thing, but the script, the acting, and the direction are so lame it just kind of bumbles along. Not one of the better projects from Warner Brothers. One entertaining number where the trumpet player doubles as the dance partner. Directed by David Butler.. started in silents. Moved to directing television a couple years after this one. According to IMDb, he had played both a northern soldier AND a southern soldier in Griffith's Birth of a Nation ! This one is okay, but there are so many better films to watch.