Chasing Rainbows (1930)

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I won't repeat other reviews; I agree with almost all comments. What I'd like to address is the unprofessional editing. In one scene actors apparently are listening to Jack Benny lecturing but without sound. This is clearly a medium reaction shot, meant to have Jack's voice over. Poly Moran stands in a doorway without moving for about three seconds before action begins. An actor enters a door from the outside - you can't see the door - and then the camera pauses. Then on the inside we see the door continues to open. At the trimmed fade out you see the door start to open again. This is an A picture made by an A studio. Such gaffes are unforgivable.

This copy of this film on TCM was rough and appeared to be only a part of the movie that it once was. After watching it, during a Marie Dressler day, I wish more of this film existed.What is here is a story about a Vaudeville road show spending it's season run on the road. There are some trials and rough spots between the folks. The train travel seems to get the best of most of them.What is most interesting, is seeing a 35 year old Jack Benny as the stage manager trying to keep the peace between some distinctly strong personalities. What is left here works okay. It appears in 1929 that even though Benny is given opportunities to be funny here, he has not yet got the comedy timing down on film that would make him so famous later when he was 39. He does get some chances to shine.I understand a whole lot of musical numbers are missing from this and I have no doubt that the entire ending is gone as on TCM the movie just seemed to stop abruptly. I have a feeling if it were all here, I might have given the film a higher rating. As it is though, I am glad to have seen what is left.

Any film that starts out with a passenger train chugging across the countryside, followed by a full ensemble rendition of Ager-and-Yellen's "Happy Days Are Here Again" can't be all bad. Sadly, this great old song is presented only in fragmentary form at the beginning to set the tone for a story about a traveling theatrical troupe; later, when the time comes for a full- length version, we learn from an insert that the sequence has been lost, a blow which this backstager cannot survive. (Imagine Golddiggers of 1935 without "Lullabye of Broadway.) There is a decent Ager-Yellen ballad ("Lucky Me, Lovable You," crooned impeccably by Charles King) and a couple of comedy numbers put over with gusto by the scenery-chewing Marie Dressler. The plot (girl-loves-boy-who-loves-other-girls) moves too slowly and far too much time is spent on Dressler's vaudevillian comic routines with her frequent screen partner Polly Moran. The two were real crowd pleasers back in the day, which only shows how much tastes have changed. Their shtick is occasionally funny but not funny enough to justify twenty minutes of footage. Jack Benny is very good as the level-headed stage manager who holds the troupe together and Charles King acts almost as well as he sings. The delicate Bessie Love has a strange, extended scene in which she breaks into grimacing, demented laughter which veers into crying and then back into laughter.

What a potentially great film (finally got hold of a copy), a big hit MGM musical that boasted Bessie Love, Charles King, Jack Benny, Marie Dressler, and Polly Moran.What a shame that all the Technolor is gone from the existing print, and even worse, so are all the big production numbers! Title cards appear to tell us where the numbers USED to be. Even the audio is gone.Indeed we miss Bessie Love leading a chorus in "Everybody Tap," Charles King singing "Love Ain't Nothing' but the Blues." and Marie Dressler singing "My Dynamic Personality." Also the entire finale of "Happy Days Are Here Again" is also gone. Thanks to Richard Barrios for listing the missing songs in a footnote in A SONG IN THE DARK.The few numbers that are left aren't too great. King sings "Lucky Me and Lovable You" to Love (who does not sing). But they do a short dance number. Dressler does an early number on the train, and Nina Martan (odd spelling) also sings one song.In this backstage musical about an acting company traveling across country in a show called "Goodbye Broadway," we get the usual stories about jealousy, love, etc. Love is adorable as Carlie, King is better than he was in THE Broadway MELODY, Benny is funny, and of course Dressler and Moran steal every scene they're in. George K. Arthur has a small role as a (gay?) member of the troupe, and so does Gwen Lee as the member who quits early on, requiring them to hire Martan. Eddie Phillips plays the smarmy lover.After smash hits with THE Broadway MELODY and Hollywood REVUE OF 1929, MGM launched this musical with its A Cast, but by the time the film hit theaters, the craze for musicals was winding down. Revue films were so unpopular that MGM included "Not a Revue" in its advertising for CHASING RAINBOWS. Bessie Love was MGM's #1 musical star of the time, and Marie Dressler and Polly Moran are just plain hysterically funny together.Let's hope these Technicolor musical numbers are found some day. What a treat that would be!