Sun Valley Serenade

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.

Anyone who has ever paid a visit to the mountain-cradled village of Sun Valley, Idaho knows that one of the luxuries of staying in its well know resort, of the same name, is that you can view this charming "boy-meets-girl, and then another girl" romantic-musical-comedy, 24 hours a day! If you are very lucky, as I was during my most recent visit, you can do so from a room overlooking the very ice rink that Sonja Henie performed upon, in this snowbound, big-band era classic "Sun Valley Serenade".

When war refugee Karen Benson (Henie) arrives from Sweden to meet her sponsor Tom Scott, the piano player for a big band played by John Payne, it is clear that she has her romantic sites set on our non-assuming hero. Scott has met, fallen in love with and proposed to Vivian Dawn (Lynn Bari), a tempestuous big band diva, just days before Karen's arrival. The band gets a gig in Sun Valley, Karen tags along, and the fun begins.

Henie's unshakable effervescence and contagious smile allow you to forgive, and even admire, her calculated attempts to win Scott's attention. Henie charms you and Scott with her thick accent and graceful fetes on both the ice and slopes. Although never recognized as an actress by the industry's standards, Henie's comedic timing is so surprising, at times, you may laugh out loud.

John Payne, as Tom Scott, is your typical 40's leading-man-- down-to-earth, charming, handsome, talented and a trust-fund baby. While the band struggles for engagements and its public relations manager needs to re-sole his shoes, the Princeton grad does not seem to have a care in the world, other than which girl to marry. He manages to keep his head just below the radar of the discrete feminine barbs at all times, with a relative air of oblivious confusion.

Milton Berle, as the band's self-deprecating public relations manager (who cooked up the adoption scheme as a publicity stunt to get Walter Wenchell's attention), keeps this comedy light-hearted despite the feeling that there is a `catfight' slowing brewing. Glen Miller's line delivery, as bandleader Phil Corey, is forgivable once the band kicks into high gear with `Chattanooga Choo-Choo', among other dance and romance tunes of the day. And now we know that Jimmy Stewart must have studied this performance prior to doing his bio-pic "The Glenn Miller Story" (1953).

Watch for cameo appearances by the adorable 18-year-old Dorothy Dandridge, the show-stopping Nicholas Brothers, and Joan Davis as Berle's gad-fly.

If you are a fan of romantic-comedies, the big-band era, ice-skating, or just an old film buff there are special moments for all. Beware, however this heart-warming comedy is addictive and you may be humming "It Happened in Sun Valley" in your sleep before you know it.

What a simply fantastic movie. A chance to see Glenn Miller and his orchestra and Sonja Heine both in their prime. The music is all toe-stepping and the dance routines keep you enthralled. Plus you get to see Sonja who was considered the best skater at the time. A movie that is both entertaining and gives you a chance to look back in time to see some truly great entertainers. This would best be described as a light, romantic comedy and it does have it moments. John Payne comes close to slapstick when he tries to sleep in two chairs. Milton Berle uses his time on the screen to great advantage. If this had been in color the scenes actually filmed in Sun Valley would have really been spectacular. Even in black and white the grandeur comes through. This one can be seen many times.

Sun Valley Serenade is remembered today for being one of the two films that Glenn Miller and his Orchestra were featured in, the other one being Orchestra Wives for 20th Century Fox. Miller was the number one swing band in the country and his presence in the film was more important than stars Sonia Henie and John Payne.

Payne's a pianist/vocalist with the Miller Band and his romancing of singer Lynn Bari gets the band a gig in Sun Valley during the ski season. Which is doubly fine for Payne because he likes all kinds of winter sports, indoor and outdoor.

But then an old publicity stunt that manager Milton Berle pulled some months earlier comes back to haunt them. He had the band sponsor a refugee from one of the occupied countries of Europe and Chester Clute from Immigration arrives with the receipt while all this full blown courtship of Bari is going on. So the band goes to Ellis Island to meet their sponsored urchin, but instead it turns out to be a rather big girl who also likes winter sports, Sonia Henie.

The band thinks to park her with Berle's aunt in New Jersey, but Sonia hears about Sun Valley and that sounds too much like home to suit her. And she's got a great advantage in that Bari isn't interested in skiing nor does she want to learn. Give you a guess who Payne winds up with.

Of course this whole fluffy plot is just an excuse to hang some skating sequences and some music by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Harry Warren and Mack Gordon contributed a fine score. In fact Sun Valley Serenade was nominated for an Oscar for black and white cinematography and musical scoring.

It also received a nomination for Best Song, one of the best known that the Glenn Miller Orchestra was known for, Chattanooga Choo Choo. John Payne gets to vocalize another great song I Know Why And So Do You which sold a few platters back in the day.

I don't know if Payne could play a piano in real life, but even if he was faking it for the film, he got a rare chance to jam with Glenn Miller as he was doing In The Mood, probably his best known hit song. I'd have paid Darryl Zanuck to do that myself.

The Miller Band's presence made a lot of folks forget this was a Sonia Henie film. Darryl Zanuck paid dear to sign Henie and she was first billed in all of her films. Her skating sequences or good, but I'm betting she didn't like being upstaged.

Nearly all the big bands in their era which was roughly 1935-1945 got into one film or another. Some got into better films than others and Miller's band did well by their two films before Glenn Miller went into the army and to his untimely disappearance over the English Channel.

Not to forget that the Nicholas Brothers and Dorothy Dandridge got to do specialty numbers. With all the talent in this film, you can't possibly go wrong giving it a look.

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.