Sally (1929 film)

Infobox Film
name = Sally (1929)


producer =
director = John Francis Dillon
writer = Waldemar Young
A.P. Younger
based on the Broadway musical by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse
starring = Marilyn Miller
Alexander Gray
music = Jerome Kern
Leonid S. Leonardi
art direction = Jack Okey
cinematography = Devereaux Jennings
Charles Edgar Schoenbaum "(Technicolor)"
editing = LeRoy Stone
distributor = First National Pictures: A Subsidiary of Warner Bros.
released = December 23, 1929
runtime = 103 min.
language = English
country = USA
imdb_id = 0020358|

"Sally" is the third sound feature photographed in Technicolor released in 1929 (the first was "On with the Show" 1929).

It was based on the Broadway stage hit, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld (which played at The New Amsterdam Theatre, from 12/21/1920 to 4/22/1922). Marilyn Miller, who had played the leading part in the Broadway production, was hired by the Warner Brothers at an extravagant sum (reportedly $1000 an hour for a total of $100,000) to star in the filmed version. [Photoplay, September 1929 ] The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction in 1930.

Plot

Sally (Marilyn Miller) is an orphan who was named by the telephone exchange where she was abandoned as a baby. In the orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. Working as a waitress, she serves Blair (Alexander Gray), and they both fall for each other, but Blair is engaged to socialite Marcia. Sally is hired to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova, but at that engagement, she is found to be a phoney. Undaunted, she proceeds with her life and has a show on Broadway, but she still thinks of Blair.

Preservation

The film survives only in black and white except for a brief color segment from the "Wild Rose" musical number which has been inserted into the print currently in circulation. Those frames which are missing in the color fragment, however, are presented in sepia toned black and white instead of being colorized to match.

Credited Cast

*Marilyn Miller as Sally
*Alexander Gray as Blair Farrell
*Joe E. Brown as Grand Duke 'Connie' Constantine
*T. Roy Barnes as Otis Hemingway Hooper
*Pert Kelton as Rosie, Otis' girlfriend
*Ford Sterling as 'Pops' Shendorff
*Maude Turner Gordon as Mrs. Ten Brock
*E.J. Ratcliffe as John Farquar
*Jack Duffy as The Old Roue
*Ethel Stone as Lutie
*Nora Lane as Marcia

References