User reviews

Anna Neagle spots John Carroll, get him to kiss her, and rushes off, while he goes to a circus show with Edward Everett Horton, where Miss Neagle is the star. The two fall madly in love and decide to get married. First though, he takes her to meet his wealthy, snobbish family... with the usual disastrous result.

It's one of the movies that Herbert Wilcox produced and directed his future wife in for RKO, and it largely tosses away the original show script. Miss Neagle dances enchantingly with Ray Bolger, who also gets a great specialty number at the end. Helen Westley, as Carroll's much-feared aunt has the standout role, a hilarious variation on her usual harridan. However, the chaotic ending is more frantic than funny.

It's based on Marilyn Miller's smash show, which played for more than 500 nights in its original run. The standard that came out of it is the Jerome Kern-Otto Harbach "Who?" and that number is used throughout the movie: not always, alas, to its advantage.

It's not a well constructed movie, but there were enough bright spots throughout to keep me thoroughly engaged

No doubt that Herbert Wilcox had to pay a pretty penny to Jack Warner for the rights to film the musical Sunny again. Warner had already done so in 1930 with the original Broadway star Marilyn Miller and had done so faithfully following the plot of the Broadway show. A circus is retained here and Anna Neagle is a circus performer. The setting is changed from Southampton in the United Kingdom and New York to New Orleans during the Mardi Gras season.

There Neagle meets and falls in love with John Carroll who is the heir to a really big fortune with one of the first automobile dealerships in the Big Easy. But New Orleans society and the circus don't really mix and the path to happiness is littered with traps.

Ray Bolger plays the circus ringmaster and has a couple of really nice specialty dancing. Most of the Kern-Harbach-Hammerstein score is gutted and some public domain songs are used, but of course the big hit of the show Who is sung and danced by Carroll and Neagle. And Neagle in her dancing is most reflective of Marilyn Miller.

The film could use some restoration work, but it's still a most entertaining piece as is the version with Marilyn Miller herself.

The sight of Anna Neagle playing young and 'cute' whilst in her mid thirties is not very appealing. The only real reason for sitting through acres of boredom is to see the wonderful Ray Bolger and his amazing elastic legs in a couple of great dance routines. John Carroll is a slightly chubby and bland leading man. The musical numbers are expensively mounted but are not presented well enough to hold the interest. The movie needed a less stodgy director than Herbert Wilcox, a younger leading lady and should have been filmed in colour for maximum impact. The previous version of 'Sunny' was no masterpiece and this remake is no improvement. It must have played better on the stage and obviously doesn't lend itself to being filmed.

I wasn't quite sure about the casting of Anna Neagle in the early WWII remake of the 1930 song and dance romance, but she does ok. She's the eponymous circus star who falls hook, line and sinker for "Larry" (John Carroll). He's from nouveau riche (car-dealership) stock, and his family had far greater aspirations for their son than this big-top performer. Their relationship is not helped by the fact that her fellow artistes don't take to him much either, and so we embark on a rather routine all-singing and dancing, light-hearted and uncomplicated, "can the guy get the gal" exercise. Like so many stage actors of her day, Neagle was a better than competent dancer, a useful singer and is very much at ease here - if completely unchallenged by the rather unremarkable writing and the somewhat formulaic story. It's really only got the two notable songs - and these "Sunny" and "Who" - written by Oscar Hammerstein II , Otto Harbach & Jerome Kern appear in various refrains as the story trundles along to it's predestined conclusion. It's too long and is probably not a film you will ever recall watching. Indeed, I doubt those who made it would have recalled it for long either - but it does showcase the considerable versatility of the star and for that, is just about worth a watch.

Anna Neagle, one of Britain's greatest stage and screen stars, who enjoyed huge success from the early Thirties on, had the misfortune to come to America for RKO in 1939. She had the wisdom to make the visit brief. She and her producer-director husband, Herbert Wilcox, returned home in 1941. Back in Britain she proceeded to have even greater success in film after film, play after play. Sunny, a generally tedious musical she made in Hollywood in 1941, gives some clues as to just how good she was. Neagle was a first-rate dancer who probably, like Rita Hayworth, could have held her own with Fred Astaire. As a singer, she was completely at ease. As an actress, she could handle comedy or drama with equal aplomb. She had a personality that came across as natural and even humorous. Like so many huge stars of the Thirties and Forties, she probably would be considered dated now, especially by those American viewers whose grandparents never really made a connection with her. Considering the number of gracious films she made after WWII, all huge hits with titles like Spring in Park Lane, Maytime in Mayfair and The Courtneys of Curzon Street (and all co-starring Michael Wilding, surely one of the most bloodless of leading men), I enjoyed seeing her do her stuff here, even though most of Sunny is a slow slog.

She plays Sunny O'Sullivan, the star of a small, upscale circus run by Bunny Billings (Ray Bolger). In New Orleans during Mardi Gras she meets by accident Larry Warren (John Carroll), handsome scion of the wealthy Warrens of Waverly Hall. They fall in love, but Sunny has to deal with the conflicts between his snooty family and her down-to-earth circus pals (which includes a trained seal). A crisis erupts just before her wedding, she flees, but then all is made well. Yawn.

Hanging on this sagging clothesline of a plot, which was adapted from the Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Jerome Kern stage musical, are the songs and the presentations of the songs. "Who" is a standard and "Sunny" is well known by the aging. There are two or three others that aren't much to speak of, so we find ourselves listening to a variety of versions of "Who" and "Sunny." Not bad, but the movie gives them to us uneasily...romantic ballad, swing, tap routine for Bolger and, most unnerving, operetta duet. Nothing quite jells.

One of the main failings of Sunny is the ponderous screenplay. It's not clever, it's seldom amusing, it goes on too long, and it gives us way too much of Edward Everett Horton as the Warren family lawyer. The other major failing is the lack of spark between Neagle and John Carroll. He doesn't give her much to make fire with. Carroll, with a plump chin, a Clark Gable mustache and a lock of oiled hair artfully curled down over his forehead, may be handsome, but he has all the uncommitted charm of an extra for bridge. Watching him warble a duet with Neagle is squirmingly artificial. Give him credit, though. He looks as if he's not embarrassed for a moment.

Sunny does have one big plus. It gives us a chance to see Paul and Grace Hartman do a couple of their fine dance routines. They made it big in vaudeville and on Broadway in revues and musicals. They never did well in movies. They spoofed all sorts of dances in their comedy routines. She was the smart one; he, the dim one. They made a few appearances in the early Fifties on the Ed Sullivan Show. Somewhere, I suppose, the memory of their act remains on kinescope. Grace Hartman died of cancer in 1955. Paul Hartman soldiered on in bit parts and a few running appearances in Mayberry RFD and the Andy Griffith Show. He died in 1973. We need to remember unique artists like the Hartmans.

Too bad the storyline takes so long to get on track this might have been a much better movie with some good writers. Just doesn't make since during the first half. Much better in the second half but by then it is too late. Musical numbers are rather lame and forgettable and sometimes seem out of place. If you are a Ray Bolger fan you will be mostly disappointed. While listed as it's star Ray Bolger only seems to play a filler role in this movie. He has one dance sequence that was interesting to watch. However even that needed better direction to showcase his talent. Anna Neagle the real star in this movie gives a rather hollow performance.

While there is no hard and fast rule, I think that a good musical needs to keep a good balance between singing, dancing and plot. And, in most cases, if there isn't enough plot and a lot of singing and dancing, then the film doesn't work for me. Such is the case for "Sunny", a film with one or two song and dance numbers too many...to the point where it just felt like a bit needed to be trimmed and more plot inserted in its place.

The story begins in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Larry (John Carroll) and his friends go to a circus, of sorts. I say 'of sorts' because it seems more like Cirque du Soleil combined with a nightclub. There you see Ray Bolger do some incredibly athletic dance routines that you just need to see! Soon Sunny O'Sullivan (an odd name, that's for sure....played by Anna Neagle)...as she performs, Larry becomes smitten. Eventually they fall in love and Larry asks her to marry him....and she agrees and leaves this circus. But soon it's obvious that his snobby rich family is aghast about her...and they make Sunny feel about as welcome as a case of the Clap...at least at first. What's to become of this romance? Tune in and see...or not.

While this film has a few good moments as well as the always welcome Edward Everett Horton, it's simply more like a variety show much of the time than a coherent story. Some might be able to look past this....I just found myself becoming bored due to all the singing and dancing...especially when it came to Neagle.

By the way, at the 40 minute mark there's a scene with the aunt where she keeps pointing a loaded gun directly at Larry's chest! What is with this insane scene?!?! Who thought any of that made any sense???

The only good things in this film are Ray Bolgers' dance numbers!