Till the Clouds Roll By

I have always liked this movie and as time goes on it seems to be a bit dated but if you like Technicolor and musicals you will like this movie. Most of the stars are unfamiliar to audiences today and you must suspend your belief in this being a true story of Jerome Kern and just enjoy the music and dance. Great Judy Garland sequences and great color. Unfortunately, the movie's copyright has lapsed and you can only get inferior versions on DVD. Occasionally, TCM will show this film with a good print. Jerome Kern, by his own admission, was not very exciting, so having Robert Walker play him didn't harm the man's reputation. Good job by Van Heflin. The worst performance has to be the woman who plays Kern's wife. All musical numbers are well done and great entertainment. I recommend this for anyone who wants to see an old 40's musical, keeping in mind what audiences in those days liked and expected.

Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) tells the story of composer Jerome Kern.In this movie he's played by Robert Walker.Van Heflin is James Hessler.Lucille Bremer is his daughter Sally.It has many fine musical numbers.My favorite has to be the one with Angela Lansbury where she's singing How'd You Like to Spoon With Me? and swinging at the same time.There are lot of names appearing in the movie.Judy Garland is in a rather big role as Marilyn Miller.Lena Horne is Julie in Show Boat.Tony Martin is Gaylord Ravenal in Show Boat.Cyd Charisse does a dance specialty in Roberta.Van Johnson is Bandleader in elite club.Esther Williams makes a cameo appearance.Silent era's 'Snub' Pollard appears as Orchestra Drummer.James Finlayson is Candy Vendor.Frank Sinatra sings the very last piece Ol' Man River.Watch this movie and enjoy all that lovely music.

This movie, about the life and times of stage composer Jerome Kern works best when it showcases pieces of his famous musical productions such as SHOWBOAT, LEAVE IT TO JANE, SALLY, OH BOY amongst others. The story of his life just proves a lot less interesting...no that's not the right word I'm looking for...I mean a lot less captivating than his music. When we see stars such as Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Tony Martin, Angela Lansbury, June Allyson, Lena Horne, Katherine Grayson, Cyd Charisse, Ray McDonald amongst others singing and performing on stage, there's magic in the air. Robert Walker as Kern does prove likable enough in the lead role and there's an innocent charm at work in these proceedings but things do run on perhaps a little too long.

This biographical movie about the life and music of Jerome Kern has a number of good sequences that make it worth watching. A great deal of the movie consists simply of recreations of stage numbers from Kern's many musicals, and indeed these account for many of the best parts of the movie. It also adds a light and highly stylized account of his career, which is often bland, but occasionally has some nice moments.

It starts with Kern, at the height of his popularity, attending the opening of "Show Boat", and it features a lengthy staging of portions of that show. From there, it has Kern telling the story of his career up to that point, his work with a fictional mentor and later with collaborator Oscar Hammerstein, and his marriage. These episodes are frequently interlaced with more musical numbers of varying lengths.

The pattern works well enough in general, as something of a slight variant of the usual musical format. The main flaw is that it is really a bit too long for the material it contains. Much of it has little real substance as a story, and it works better as light entertainment. It does at times touch on some real issues, most particularly in following the mentor's daughter as she grows up.

Robert Walker is solid as Kern, and Van Heflin gets some good moments portraying the wise, slightly grouchy mentor. But some of the best moments are provided not by any of the main characters but by stars like Judy Garland, Lena Horne, and June Allyson, who appear in the musical numbers. Most of these are enjoyable, and a couple of them are show-stoppers. They probably provide the main reason for watching the movie as a whole.

I gave Till the Clouds Roll By a 5/10. It's worth seeing for the music, and I'd have rated it higher had it been shortened to just the music. It could have got another bump by allocating the entire time to performances -- there was time for over twice as many songs, and there's no problem finding enough good Kern songs to fill the time. Kern wrote well over 1000 songs, and though of course not all are memorable, finding 50 or 100 good ones is easy.

But the choice and arrangements are nearly random. The order in which the songs are presented makes little musical or dramatic sense. They are done by a variety of performers with no consistency. The time after Show Boat is mostly ignored -- hey folks, Kern was actively writing for another 15 years and did his best work from Show Boat on. So even had the movie contained a full three hours of music, the best I could call it would be a haphazard revue with very good performers and memorable songs.

The worst, as others have pointed out, is the story line. To make it clear: THIS STORY LINE IS ALMOST ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS. Oh, of course the shows mentioned are accurately described. But I own a biography of Kern, and the name "Hessler" does not appear -- the character of Jim Hessler is totally fictitious. Kern's wife Eva was British, but the circumstances of their meeting do not resemble the movie. It's probably true that Kern just missed sailing on the Lusitania, but for totally different reasons (Frohman planned the trip for both of them, and Kern overslept). Etc etc ad nauseum. Why bother? The movie would have been much improved by letting the music speak for itself.

Edward