mark.waltz Review of Look for the Silver Lining

Look for the Silver Lining (1949)

A heart full of joy and gladness.

[5/10 · 20 October 2012]

The beautiful June Haver war a talented performer, but sadly, she lacks the on-screen magic to play Broadway's most beloved musical star of the 1920's. We today cannot comprehend the magic that was Marilyn Miller because all we have of her work are three early sound films that have showed little that made her so spectacular. Only one of them (the film version of "Sally") had such a moment, the color sequence where Miller went all out to perform the lively "I'm a Wild, Wild Rose". That song is the highlight of this extremely ordinary bio which only touches on her sometimes scandalous private life, totally overlooking her marriage to Jack Pickford (Mary's brother) and rumored affair with Florenz Ziegfeld. Haver handles the songs and dances nicely (singing a sweet version of "Look For the Silver Lining" and "Who?") but lacks fire. Ray Bolger is rather wasted as veteran Broadway choreographer Jack Donahue while Gordan MacRae makes little impression in his film debut. He would score better with Haver in "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady" and a series of light-hearted musicals with Doris Day, entering film immortality as the star of two of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hits.