Look for the Silver Lining

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.

I have read a lot about Marilyn Miller from Indiana to Broadway and it seems that she was indeed a great Broadway star, especially in the 20s. I think this is the best movie June Haver ever done, of her 15 she made,and the whole concept of the time, era, clothes and background seems to come to life, with an extra lift. MM was supposed to have been a perfectionist on stage and did not like anyone in the cast who was not the same. JH does not quite get this part correct but at least she has a damn good try. The supporting cast from Ray Bolger to Gordon Macrae are also good and overall a thoroughly entertaining musical. I eagerly watch for it to come on TV and I would not miss it for the world.

Look For the Silver Lining is a particular song favorite of mine and it was the theme song of one of Broadway's brightest stars, Marilyn Miller. Her own life, sad to say did not have too many sunny days in it after that fateful night where she lost her first husband.

She died young from complications of a sinus operation in 1936 in the year when her producer/benefactor Florenz Ziegfeld had a biographical film about him. There was no mention of Marilyn's name in the film at all.

June Haver plays a winning Marilyn whom we see as a girl like Judy Garland, born in a trunk. Remember that Judy played Marilyn in Look for the Silver Lining. She was a child performer in a family of performers like the Gumm sisters. She met and fell in love with Frank Carter, a song and dance man who was killed in a car crash in New Jersey as the film shows. Carter in this film is played by Gordon MacRae in one of his earliest film roles.

Marilyn spent an extraordinary amount of money for a tomb for the late Mr. Carter who by all rights on his own would never deserve such a monument. It's one of the grandest in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx where Marilyn eventually joined him. It dwarfs such folks as former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Irving Berlin who wrote Easter Parade for her and Clifton Webb in As Thousands Cheer.

In this film Marilyn has one other husband, Jack Donohue played by Ray Bolger who has some terrific dance numbers. That and two other marriages in real life didn't work out for her. One of her other husbands was Jack Pickford, brother of Mary Pickford who led quite a life of drink and debauchery and died young.

What's not shown is how hearty Marilyn partied in the Roaring Twenties. She was one wild child between marriages indulging in uncountable one night stands. It was said that in shows with her frequent co-star Clifton Webb, they'd split up the chorus boys, she'd take the straight ones and he'd go after the gay ones, many times their paths would cross.

One thing Marilyn never did was record. She adamantly refused record contracts, would not consider going to a recording studio to record the songs identified with her like Look For the Silver Lining, Who, and Easter Parade. She felt that sound alone could not capture the magic of a live performance, the dancing as well as the singing. Only those early sound films are the only record of her performing.

Marilyn Miller had an R, even an X rated life and Look for the Silver Lining does not remotely do justice to it. Still it's a tastefully done tribute to a very tragic star who found happiness in this world a most elusive thing.

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.

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.