Sunny (1930 film)

Infobox Film
name = Sunny (1930)

---

producer =
director = William A. Seiter
writer = Henry McCarty and Humphrey Pearson
based on the play by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach
starring = Marilyn Miller
Lawrence Gray
Inez Courtney
Joe Donahue
music = Jerome Kern
Oscar Hammerstein II
Otto A. Harbach
art direction = John Hughes
cinematography = Ernest Haller
Arthur Reeves
editing = LeRoy Stone
distributor = First National Pictures: A Subsidiary of Warner Bros.
released = November 9, 1930
runtime = 78 min.
language = English
country = USA
imdb_id = 0021435|

"Sunny" is a musical comedy film released in 1930 by Warner Bros. The movie was based on the Broadway stage hit, "Sunny", produced by Charles Dillingham, which played from September 22, 1925 to December 11, 1926. Marilyn Miller, who had played the leading part in the Broadway production, was hired by the Warner Brothers to reprise the role that made her the highest paid star on Broadway.

Production

The film was completed as a full musical. Due to the backlash against musicals, however, the Warner Bros. were forced to make many cuts to the film and much of the original music is missing or severely truncated. The film had originally been announced as a Technicolor production in trade journals. This was dropped once the studio realized that the public was growing weary of musicals.

Preservation

*The film is in need of restoration. The current circulating print has poor sound that was inappropriately transferred from the original Vitaphone disks in the 1950s. Original Vitaphone disks are still extant which can be used to properly restore the original sound to the film.

*The film survives only in the cut version which was released in late 1930 by Warner Brothers. Due to the backlash against musicals, the Warner Bros. were forced to cut a lot of the musical sequences before releasing the film.

*The film was released as a full musical outside of the United States, where a backlash against musicals never occurred. It is unknown whether a print of this longer version still exists.

Trivia

*Marilyn Miller was paid $500,000 for her work on this film. (She had only been paid $100,000 dollars for "Sally" (1929), her previous film).

Music

* "The Hunt Dance" (Danced by Marilyn Miller)
* "I Was Alone" (Performed by Marilyn Miller)
* "When We Get Our Divorce" (Danced by Marilyn Miller and Joe Donahue)
* "Who?" (Performed by Marilyn Miller and Lawrence Gray)
* "Oh! Didn't He Ramble" (Performed by Lawrence Gray and Men)
* "Sunny" (Cut from film before release)
* "D'Ya Love Me?" (Cut from film before release)
* "Two Little Love Birds" (Cut from film before release)

References