Smilin' Through

source: Smilin' Through

What a charming film this is. It's definitely for the lover of romance, and if that's the type of film you like, this one is easy to love – it has one strong scene after another, great acting, and that wonderful feeling of how magical, strong, and yet fragile love can be. Norma Shearer's character has been raised by her uncle (Leslie Howard) after being orphaned as a child. Howard himself has suffered the loss of his wife on his wedding day, and has been pining for her ever since. One evening while Shearer is taking shelter in an old mansion with her boyfriend (Ralph Forbes) during a thunderstorm, she happens to meet another man (Frederic March), and the two are instantly drawn to one another. Things get complicated when it's revealed that March's father (also played by March) was the one who caused the death of Howard's wife (also played by Shearer). Also threatening things is March being scheduled to go off to war. I loved the way the story was told, with a flashback, so that it was a bit like a movie within a movie. It also felt like love playing out across generations, and recurring, with all the same depth of feeling. Some of the scenes evoke a sentimental or poignant feeling – in the cemetery, remembering love lost – and others evoke that wonderful feeling of falling in love. The mansion scene, with that delicious ambiance of cobwebs, a fire, an old portrait, and with Shearer and March toasting one another after he finds an old bottle of port, is fantastic. "Any old port in a storm," he quips. The two have such chemistry together. Their bike ride and time in the teahouse is also sweet, after he had essentially admitted to stalking her ("you're a window-peeper", she teases). Towards the end of that scene Shearer says, almost breathlessly, "Love is ... something you feel. It just happens. You can't do anything about it. If I loved somebody, I'd love him forever", as the camera dissolves on the old woman who has fallen asleep. I'm usually not big on Leslie Howard, but he was great too, and his scenes with the other character Shearer played were wonderful. He says to her "Wouldn't it be marvelous if every time I opened my eyes for the rest of my life, you were there?" She says: "I will be." And he says: "And always as beautiful as you are tonight?", the last bit echoing March's toast in the mansion. It's all the more touching seeing these kinds of scenes in an old movie where the actors have all passed away, but are captured in these moments, so ephemeral and fleeting, and yet with feeling so strong and dramatic. Shearer's character's personality is a romantic, and the plot allows her to express her love with such urgency, because March is going away. It is reserved and proper, with almost all of the characters (except March's father / evil March and his drinking problem) having a sense of decorum and grace, and yet these two are allowed to express their love so freely and fiercely ... it's a great combination. As she says when he's going away, "It's no use, I'll always love him. I'm just that sort of a fool. I have no pride", any hopeless romantic can identify. March's dual role may remind you a bit of his role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (though this is of course two characters), and as the film plays out, you may also be reminded of "An Affair to Remember". There is real angst here, from those whose love is unrequited for reasons that simply can't be explained – love happens or it doesn't – to those who suffer tragedy. When Shearer and March must part, she says with real passion, "I'm yours and you're mine; I want that to be true before you go" implying marriage and sex, but he demurs, torn. And yet, how magical it is; the eyes, the smiles, the banter, the embraces. This would be a great movie to curl up in front of with someone you love.

That review summary means, before anybody is misled (as it does sound fairly misleading), that there is so much to love about 'Smilin Through' with pretty much everything being done beautifully. Despite what the title of the film may suggest, 'Smilin Through' is not what one would call a feel good film, if anything it is as close to a tear-jerker as any "classic" film can get. All three leads, Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard and Fredric March, have been responsible for some very good and more work. 'Smilin Through' is a truly beautiful film in every sense. Not just emotionally, but also in terms of production values and performances. Am hardly somebody who never cries watching films, have actually been known to get very weepy watching film, television, opera, theatre and ballet productions etc. 'Smilin Through' certainly made me cry, and not just a little, we're talking buckets. For me it is the single most poignant film seen in quite some time and one of the most touching in film history. And in a way that is genuine, never felt forced to be emotional. Visually, 'Smilin Through' is the very meaning of lavish, maybe not quite as much as the otherwise vastly inferior re-make from 1941 with Jeanette MacDonald, Gene Raymond and Brian Aherne directed by Frank Borzage, but it's beautifully photographed and classily produced. The music avoids going overly melodramatic and is lush and sometimes haunting. Sidney Franklin's direction is very polished and at ease with the material, always making the drama nicely balanced and compelling and avoiding the over-sentimental route. From a scripting point of view, there is a lot of honesty and sincerity and any mawkishness never gets over-the-top (actually didn't notice any). Any melodrama doesn't get overwrought or heavy-handed. The story is admittedly complicated and full attention is needed, but it didn't to me get over-convoluted and left me emotionally invested throughout. The ending is one of those heart-warming, stays with one forever sort of endings. All the performances are top-notch and all three leads are perfectly cast. Shearer is particularly magnificent and found myself believing every word, emotion and action, one of her best. Howard is suitably distinguished and March is sympathetic and charming. In conclusion, wonderful. 10/10.

Sidney Franklin was perhaps MGM's safest director of the '30s, being handed a series of prestige projects and always bringing an unadventurous classiness to them. This one, from a Jane Cowl Broadway war horse, has two sad love stories in different eras, sumptuous photography, and a small, starry cast. Leslie Howard, forced to spend most of the movie behind unflattering I'm-a-70-year-old makeup, lends it dignity, and Norma Shearer and Fredric March deliver a one-two punch of star quality. She was always a little artificial, a little too love-me, but she did have the individuality that spells 1930s movie star. He was usually excellent, and he is here, infusing his noble-soldier persona with a modern immediacy that's the antithesis of her actressy histrionics. Speaking of actressy, I've never been able to tolerate Beryl Mercer, and she's at her most unforgivable here, but at least it's a small part. It's less arthritic and overproduced than the Jeanette MacDonald remake, and if the ending steals from "Viennese Nights" and presages the MacDonald-Eddy "Maytime" right down to the double exposure, it doesn't ruin a still-affecting love story.

Minor spoiler ahead. This is a classic weepy, derived from a play. I am not very fond of Fredric March (who wrecked Anna Karenina) or Norma Shearer (a 30s taste if there ever was one), but will watch anything with Leslie Howard in it (even though he spends most of the movie in old man makeup). It isn't that good of a movie, really, though there are some interesting camera moments here and there. The writing is pretty clunky. The most compelling thing is the startling scene between the two lovers, on the verge of his leaving for the front in World War I, where they actually have a serious conversation about sleeping together before he goes in case he dies, and she is at least as eager as he is -- a symptom of a just barely prior to code film. The film buffers it with vague stuff about going to Dover and getting married overnight, etc., but the real issue is blatantly obvious.

In England, elderly Leslie Howard (as John Carteret) still mourns the death of blonde-trussed teenager Norma Shearer (as Moonyeen Clare). As we see in a flashback to 1868, Ms. Shearer was shot to death by Mr. Howard's alcoholic rival Fredric March (as Jeremy Wayne) while the two exchanged wedding vows. A flashback to 1898 reveals how Howard adopted five-year-old Cora Sue Collins; in 1915, she grows up to be adult Norma Shearer (as Kathleen Sheridan). Presently, Shearer falls in love at first sight with handsome American traveler Fredric March (as Kenneth "Ken" Wayne). As Mr. March happens to be the son of the man who killed his bride, Howard makes Shearer promise to stay away from their new neighbor... MGM's box office star, named "Quigley Publications" #6 for 1932, acts giddy and girlish in soft focus. Director Sidney Franklin, who helmed both this and the earlier silent film version, does excellent work with windows. "Smilin' Through" was originally a tremendous hit for popular stage actress Jane Cowl, who wrote the strongly romantic story with Jane Murfin (using the alias "Allan Langdon Martin"). Ms. Cowl starred in only a couple of silent films, unfortunately. Even worse, the 1922 "Smilin' Through" with Norma Talmadge in the leading roles is not available for viewing. There are prints of this film surviving in the U.S. Library of Congress and the Netherlands Film Museum. It was one of Ms. Talmadge's most successful, winning a "Quigley Publications" honor as 1922's best picture, and should be restored. The Shearer version won the 1932 "Photoplay" award. MGM did it again with less success, in a 1941 musical starring Jeanette MacDonald. Note this version's unaccredited gardener David Torrence played Howard's pal "Owen" in the 1919 stage version; and, the 1941 version's unaccredited doctor Wyndham Standing played Howard's role in the 1922 silent version. ****** Smilin' Through (9/24/32) Sidney Franklin ~ Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard, O.P. Heggie

I cannot imagine a movie being classier than this one. The lilting mood of the story is felt all the way through the film until its closing moments. The swell of music followed by the appearance of a 'The End' card, like a surrendered afterthought on the screen, make Smilin' Through seem as if MGM meant to deliver a movie on a cloud in 1932. Fredric March and Norma Shearer's conversations have a sense of 'sway' or dance about them. From her refusal to see his soldier off at the train station then following him there in the very next scene to his simple but imploring, "There's a war on, and I'm in it!", the well-drawn characters demonstrate nobility, humor, and attachment to each other that are poetic in their simplicity. Even an elderly man, as painted by Leslie Howard's portrayal, commits his loving then selfish then last surprising acts with grace. Director, Sidney Franklin motions us into the fold to experience the drama alongside the characters with his special touches: distant gunfire rattling windows, doors shutting on a church shooting while we wait for them to be reopened to discover how the characters are reacting. No leotards or shades of pink are glimpsed here, but surely we have been to a ballet of sorts.

The horror of World War I, a conflict with global dimensions had never been experienced by man before. With so many people in the participating countries suffering losses of family members there was a big spiritual movement among the older generation at the same time the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties was celebrated by the younger brothers and sisters of fallen soldiers. One of the best examples of this is the play Smilin' Through which was written and performed by Jane Cowl on Broadway. It's unfortunate that she was not chosen to do the lead in the first sound version on film, but Norma Shearer is a more than adequate substitute. The play Smilin' Through ran for 175 performances in the 1919-20 season on Broadway and then was made into a silent film feature with Norma Talmadge in the lead. It concerns the lost love of a man and how even with the greatest of spiritual barriers between them, there is a connection even through fifty years of separation. The man in the film is Leslie Howard who years after his bride was killed on their wedding day, gets charge of her niece when her parents are killed. The niece when she grows up and the bride in both ghostly and flashback sequences is played by Shearer. The third lead in this film is Fredric March who plays father and son. As the son who was brought up in America by his mother, he never knew his father, he's come over to Great Britain to enlist in the army of the land of his forefathers. He and Shearer take to one another, but Howard is furious at the idea. He's got reasons. March as the father is the maniacally jealous former suitor of the aunt who was killed. In fact he's the one who did it and left Howard a lonely grieving man for generations. Both March and Shearer are great in their parts. Especially March who is called on to play two very different kinds of men and being the superb actor he was, plays them both so well. As for Leslie Howard, he's in a typical Leslie Howard part, charming with a suffocating air of sadness about him, and so very British, the typical Englishman as they see themselves. Norma's part as the aunt calls for her to sing the song Smilin' Through and of course it's dubbed. There was no need of that in the third version with Jeanette MacDonald who in that version sings a nice medley of period songs. Jeanette's version does unfavorably compare with Norma's, but definitely not in the singing department. I'd like to see the Norma Talmadge silent if it still exists. You would have to made of stone like those great lions at the New York Public Library not to be moved by Smilin' Through. Given the times, this play and this film had a ready audience who wanted so desperately to believe that they would in fact be reunited with loved ones.

Smilin' Through is about a man played by Leslie Howard who must raise his friend's niece because her parents were killed. Howard, who has just lost his wife, reluctantly agrees. He begins to realize, over the years, that the girl he is raising (Norma Shearer) is very similar in looks to his deceased wife. Because of this fact, he has a strong relationship with her. One night, Shearer is off with a friend to an abandoned house. They find that someone else is there. The person who was there (Fredric March) is actually the son of the man who killed Howard's wife. And the abandoned house was where March grew up. Shearer falls for March and when Howard sees this, he becomes jealous. Tensions rise in this excellent "tearjerker." It's only flaw is that it seems to get a bit overlong for what it's trying to tell right at the very end. All of the three leads are amazing and should have been nominated for Oscars. Sadly, the only nomination it did get was Picture, which it should have won.

I rented Smilin' Through because it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, but I don't really know why it was. Basically, it's an earlier version of 1948's Enchantment, but not nearly as good. In both versions, a young actor plays an old man mourning the loss of his lover from decades earlier. His niece falls in love with a soldier, but others disapprove and threaten the match. But in Enchantment, David Niven is the lead, and in Smilin' Through, Leslie Howard is the lead. As Kevin Kline says in French Kiss, "Tough decision!" I can't stand Norma Shearer, and whenever she's cast as a romantic lead, I spend the entire movie cringing. Everyone in the film plays a dual role, which is actually the most interest part of the movie, so Norma plays the niece and her aunt. Leslie plays the young and old versions of himself, and Fredric March plays a father and his son. In the "modern" timeline, Norma falls in love with Freddie, but Uncle Leslie forbids the match because Fredric's father stood in the way of his own happiness decades ago. As proved by Enchantment, this story could be entertaining, if done properly. Maybe because this was made in 1932, and Hollywood barely had a handle on talking pictures, this version isn't very good. None of the characters are likable, and Norma acts ridiculously spastic in the love scenes with Freddie. If this story interests you, rent Enchantment instead.