Till the Clouds Roll By **** (1946, Robert Walker, Van Heflin, Lucille Bremer) – Classic Movie Review 3608

Director Richard Whorf’s striking 1946 MGM musical is a tribute to the composer/song-writer Jerome Kern, who is played by Robert Walker. The movie starts with the premiere of Show Boat and flashes back to Kern’s early days and his struggle as a young composer. James I Hessler (Van Heflin) tells Kern to ‘think big’, he hits the big time, marries, and helps Heflin’s star-gazing daughter Sally Hessler (Lucille Bremer).

The adverts promised that it was going to be a ‘mammoth musical of Jerome Kern’s dramatic life story’. But it turns out that Kern’s life is pretty dull, at least as portrayed here, though fortunately the songs are not, and the extraordinary cast gives them all it has got.

Frank Sinatra sings ‘Ol’ Man River’, Kathryn Grayson ‘Make Believe’ and Long Ago (and Far Away), Lena Horne ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man’, Angela Lansbury sings and dances ‘How’d You Like to Spoon With Me?’ and Judy Garland ‘Look for the Silver Lining’.

Playing real-life singer-dancer Marilyn Miller, Garland was pregnant with her first daughter, Liza Minnelli, and was placed behind stacks of dishes while singing it. Garland also sings ‘Who?’ but her third number ‘Do You Love Me?’ was cut. Her sequences were filmed by her then new husband, Vincente Minnelli.

Van Johnson (the bandleader in the Elite Club) dances inside a big blue suit and sings I Won’t Dance. The title track Till The Clouds Roll By is sung and danced by Ray McDonald with June Allyson and Chorus. Allyson also gets to sing and dance Cleopatterer and Leave It to Jane.

Also in the cast are Mary Nash, Dinah Shore as herself singing The Last Time I Saw Paris, Virginia O’Brien, Tony Martin, and Cyd Charisse and Gower Champion dancing in the segment Roberta, with the MGM Chorus singing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

Grayson is Magnolia Hawks, Horne is Julie LaVerne and Martin is Gaylord Ravenal in a condensed production of Kern’s most famous show, Show Boat.

When MGM told Kern it wanted to make a movie of his life he said his life had been so boring they would have trouble making an interesting movie from it. Asked what he thought about Robert Walker playing him, he said it sounded all right, but he wanted to hear his wife’s opinion. She told him to play himself and send Walker home to her. The screenplay was rewritten when he died unexpectedly of a cerebral haemorrhage on November 11 1945, aged 60.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3608
Check out more reviews on derekwinnert.com

Lena Horne is Julie LaVerne in a condensed production of Kern’s most famous show, Show Boat, and sings ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man’.