''Chasing Rainbows'' (also known as ''The Road Show'') is a 1930 American

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

romantic

musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serv ...

directed by

Charles Reisner Charles Francis Reisner (March 14, 1887 – September 24, 1962) was an American film director and actor of the 1920s and 1930s. The German-American directed over 60 films between 1920 and 1950 and acted in over 20 films between 1916 and 1 ...

, and released by

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

. The film reunites ''

The Broadway Melody ''The Broadway Melody'', also known as ''The Broadway Melody of 1929'', is a 1929 American pre-Code musical film and the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was one of the early musicals to feature a Technicolor sequen ...

'' stars

Bessie Love Bessie Love (born Juanita Horton; September 10, 1898April 26, 1986) was an American-British actress who achieved prominence playing innocent, young girls and wholesome leading ladies in silent and early sound films. Her acting career spanned ne ...

and Charles King, with a supporting cast of

Jack Benny Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky; February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success as a violinist on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with ...

Marie Dressler Leila Marie Koerber (November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934), known professionally as Marie Dressler, was a Canadian-born stage- and screen-actress and comedian, popular in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood in early silent film, silent an ...

, and

Polly Moran Pauline Theresa Moran (June 28, 1883 – January 24, 1952) billed as Polly Moran, was an American actress of vaudeville, stage and screen and a comedian. Career Born in Chicago, Illinois, Moran started in vaudeville, and widely toured North ...

. This was Jack Benny's first dramatic role in a motion picture. Filmed in July and August 1929, it was not released for months later, missing an opportunity to capitalize on the success of its song "

Happy Days Are Here Again "Happy Days Are Here Again" is a 1929 song with music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen. It was originally published by Ager, Yellen, and Bornstein. The song is a standard that has been interpreted by various artists. It appeared in t ...

", which by then had already been a major hit.

Plot

Carlie (Love) and Terry (King) are in a traveling vaudeville troupe with Eddie (Benny), the stage manager; Bonnie (Dressler), a comedian; and Polly (Moran), the wardrobe mistress. Terry constantly falls in love with his leading ladies, and marries Daphne (Martan), a two-timing songstress. When he finds her with another man, Terry threatens to kill himself, but Carlie reassures him that "Happy Days Are Here Again," and the show goes on.

Cast

Reception

The film was commercially successful, but not as much as expected. Love, Dressler, and Benny all received positive reviews for their performances.

Preservation status

''Chasing Rainbows'' was mostly filmed in black and white, but had two sequences shot in

Technicolor Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...

. The film survives, but the color scenes are lost, having been removed for a re-release in 1931 and were destroyed in the

1965 MGM vault fire On August 10, 1965, a fire erupted in Vault 7, a storage facility at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio (MGM) backlot (now Sony Pictures Studios) in Culver City, California. It was caused by an electrical short that ignited flammable stored nitrate ...

. The audio from the missing technicolor scenes still exists on

Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National Pictures, First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc sys ...

disks, including "Happy Days Are Here Again". The film has been issued on DVD in the

Warner Archive Collection The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...

References

External links

* * *
Surviving Vitaphone soundtrack for lost reels 10 & 11
at

SoundCloud SoundCloud is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG. The service enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is ...