Smilin' Through

I can't add much to the raves already posted.

The first song I remember my mother singing to me was "Smiling Through" ("But through all the long years, when the clouds brought their tears, those two eyes of blue came smiling through at me"), and she'd tell me the movie's story. I taught the song to my children and grandchildren, but until recent years there was no way to get a copy of the movie.

I thought I wanted the Jeannette MacDonald version because of her beautiful voice, but it was back ordered and only this one was available--lucky for me. It seems to be everyone's favorite of the three.

The wedding scene is a masterpiece--understated and heartbreaking, but I'm finally able to handle it. It's that very last scene that gets me every time. Best kind of tears, though: the kind you're "smiling through".

Norma Shearer, like Irene Dunne, is not only beautiful to look at but irresistibly likable.

Smilin' Through is about a man played by Leslie Howard who must raise his friend's niece because her parents were killed. Howard, who has just lost his wife, reluctantly agrees.

He begins to realize, over the years, that the girl he is raising (Norma Shearer) is very similar in looks to his deceased wife. Because of this fact, he has a strong relationship with her.

One night, Shearer is off with a friend to an abandoned house. They find that someone else is there. The person who was there (Fredric March) is actually the son of the man who killed Howard's wife. And the abandoned house was where March grew up.

Shearer falls for March and when Howard sees this, he becomes jealous. Tensions rise in this excellent "tearjerker." It's only flaw is that it seems to get a bit overlong for what it's trying to tell right at the very end.

All of the three leads are amazing and should have been nominated for Oscars. Sadly, the only nomination it did get was Picture, which it should have won.

Sir John (Leslie Howard) is devastated and disgusted as his niece Kathleen (Norma Shearer), a young woman living with him since her parents died in her infancy, falls in love with Kenneth (Fredric March), the son of the man who, in a jealous rage, killed Sir John's bride to be on their wedding day. As Kenneth is about to join his company at the front in World War I, Kathleen is torn between her filial duty towards her uncle and her love for Kenneth.

Sidney Franklin's film is the quintessential tearjerker, one that I have dreamed of watching all my adult life, and tonight I finally managed. Not many films outlast those sorts of expectations, I found recently that 'Sevent Heaven' was relatively feeble-minded, not the film I had been looking forward to.

'Smilin' Through' triumphs though, soaringly so. The film is not only sumptuous in decor and cinematography, but has a real heart and real intelligence. I loved the way that almost every scene takes place in a garden with burgeoning flora, drooping flowers, heavy with romantic regret and sexual portent. One could almost smell the dizzy perfume of the plants. And I admired the way that Sidney Franklin distinguishes so clearly and yet not demonstratively between the way that young love professes itself in the 1860's, the time of John's and Moonyeen's courtship, and the war years with Kathleen's and Ken's romance. Franklin, in his direction, subtly underlines the tender dewy-eyed romanticism of the old days, "misty, water-colored mem'ries" indeed, with Kathleen perpetually wearing her wedding gown, even in her scenes as a ghost. And in the modern story we have an altogether more practical couple, acting in the context of a world war, with the far-away guns and canons sending rumblings through the village, sending windows and panes rattling. Kathleen in the modern story is more earthy and doesn't, in this pre-Code Hollywood picture, disguise how she is longing for her sexual union with Ken: "By the time I'm through with you, you won't be able to fight anyway", she claims.

The acting is a chapter unto itself. I was never a fan of Leslie Howard's, and although it must be said that his part is probably the least interesting in the film, he conveys an endearing boyishness in the 1860's scenes, easy-going and infectious. Fredric March strikes up a marvelous rapport with Norma Shearer, sending off sparks of a loose energy that seem almost improvised, certainly captivating. Their scenes today should even today serve as must-see footage for acting students. March shows glimpses of the impressive character actor he was to become, and Shearer is luminous and entirely lovable, great performances.

The perfect genre piece, destined to give you the most delicious heartache.

In England, elderly Leslie Howard (as John Carteret) still mourns the death of blonde-trussed teenager Norma Shearer (as Moonyeen Clare). As we see in a flashback to 1868, Ms. Shearer was shot to death by Mr. Howard's alcoholic rival Fredric March (as Jeremy Wayne) while the two exchanged wedding vows. A flashback to 1898 reveals how Howard adopted five-year-old Cora Sue Collins; in 1915, she grows up to be adult Norma Shearer (as Kathleen Sheridan). Presently, Shearer falls in love at first sight with handsome American traveler Fredric March (as Kenneth "Ken" Wayne). As Mr. March happens to be the son of the man who killed his bride, Howard makes Shearer promise to stay away from their new neighbor...

MGM's box office star, named "Quigley Publications" #6 for 1932, acts giddy and girlish in soft focus. Director Sidney Franklin, who helmed both this and the earlier silent film version, does excellent work with windows.

"Smilin' Through" was originally a tremendous hit for popular stage actress Jane Cowl, who wrote the strongly romantic story with Jane Murfin (using the alias "Allan Langdon Martin"). Ms. Cowl starred in only a couple of silent films, unfortunately. Even worse, the 1922 "Smilin' Through" with Norma Talmadge in the leading roles is not available for viewing. There are prints of this film surviving in the U.S. Library of Congress and the Netherlands Film Museum. It was one of Ms. Talmadge's most successful, winning a "Quigley Publications" honor as 1922's best picture, and should be restored. The Shearer version won the 1932 "Photoplay" award. MGM did it again with less success, in a 1941 musical starring Jeanette MacDonald.

Note this version's unaccredited gardener David Torrence played Howard's pal "Owen" in the 1919 stage version; and, the 1941 version's unaccredited doctor Wyndham Standing played Howard's role in the 1922 silent version.

****** Smilin' Through (9/24/32) Sidney Franklin ~ Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard, O.P. Heggie

I cannot imagine a movie being classier than this one. The lilting mood of the story is felt all the way through the film until its closing moments. The swell of music followed by the appearance of a 'The End' card, like a surrendered afterthought on the screen, make Smilin' Through seem as if MGM meant to deliver a movie on a cloud in 1932. Fredric March and Norma Shearer's conversations have a sense of 'sway' or dance about them. From her refusal to see his soldier off at the train station then following him there in the very next scene to his simple but imploring, "There's a war on, and I'm in it!", the well-drawn characters demonstrate nobility, humor, and attachment to each other that are poetic in their simplicity. Even an elderly man, as painted by Leslie Howard's portrayal, commits his loving then selfish then last surprising acts with grace. Director, Sidney Franklin motions us into the fold to experience the drama alongside the characters with his special touches: distant gunfire rattling windows, doors shutting on a church shooting while we wait for them to be reopened to discover how the characters are reacting. No leotards or shades of pink are glimpsed here, but surely we have been to a ballet of sorts.