Customer Reviews

Sunny

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I had heard references to Marilyn Miller in Sunny, and when I stumbled across this DVD, I thought that it might be interesting to see what the 1920's star was like. Mistake. Although the Amazon site lists Marilyn Miller as being in the film, she most definitely is not - it was made three years after her death. The back of the DVD box says something about "This is a second version of the film starring Marilyn Miller." Ambiguous and misleading.
What you get is a terrible DVD. There are no extras - not even anything written on the box other than the misleading back. The visual quality of the film (in black and white despite the cover) is appalling. It looks like something someone filmed as it played on a television - and not a good one.
Anna Neagle (mostly of British fame)is Sunny a singer in a southern circus who occasionally slips into her native accent. During Mardi Gras, some lox whose name I have deservedly forgotten falls for her - but she is a circus girl and he is rich. There is - literally - a lot of running around through the same Mardi Gras crowd, before the rich guy can catch Sunny, who has, for no discernible reason, run away from him after they meet and "spoon". He takes her home to the family manse. He has an ogre of an aunt who dominates the family and who almost immediately befriends Sunny. (Most of the cast just stands around. Ray Bolger at his worst does a couple of short dances. Edward Everett Horton, looking more depressed than usual, sits around.)Sunny decides she won't fit in when the clueless circus people arrive in costume, and she runs off. The lox catches her on a river paddle boat, and the aunt, who for some reason is steering the boat, declares she can marry the not so young lovers.
By the way this is a musical, but the one song of any note (no pun intended) is "Who" which is never really fully presented. There is some humming by the silhouettes of (lord forgive me) darkies. One black character has a line - "Mammy" gets to say something like "Yazzuh."
The sound quality is crummy, and it is hard to see what's going on at times.
This movie would be instantly forgettable if it weren't so notably bad. It lingers like the aroma of bad eggs.

DVD-R mfr. SYNERGY offers no commentary, deleted scenes, subtitles or other bonus features. Dubs are "best available source" and can vary from very good to only fair.


The musical comedy SUNNY (1941) is set in New Orleans during the final hours of Mardi Gras. This second remake of the stageplay (with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach) stars Anna Neagle, John Carroll, Ray Bolger (in his first film since THE WIZARD OF OZ) and Edward Everett Horton.

The original 1925 Broadway version (Kern's first collaboration with Hammerstein) which ran for 517 performances was his follow-up to "Sally." The Broadway cast included Marilyn Miller, Clifton Webb, Cliff Edwards (aka Ukulele Ike and Jiminy Cricket) and Pert Kelton (Marian's Irish mother in Meredith Willson's THE MUSIC MAN).

The play's best-remembered song is "Who" (stole my heart away, who etc.)

A most amusing sequence in this rather dated film is Edward Horton's several attempts to get an officious waiter to serve him a bowl of turtle soup. Each time, a plate of breaded oysters on the half shell arrives, much to Horton's frustration.