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

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...

romantic

musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the 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 serve merely as breaks ...

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 and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...

. 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 first 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 ei ...

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 playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with ...

Marie Dressler Marie Dressler (born Leila Marie Koerber, November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was a Canadian stage and screen actress, comedian, and early silent film and Depression-era film star. In 1914, she was in the first full-length film comedy. She ...

, and

Polly Moran Pauline Theresa Moran (June 28, 1883 – January 25, 1952) billed as Polly Moran, was an American actress of vaudeville, stage and screen and comedian. Career Born in Chicago, Illinois, Moran started in vaudeville, and widely toured North A ...

. 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. The song is a standard that has been interpreted by various artists. It appeared in the 1930 film '' Chasing Rainbows'' and was the campaign song for ...

", 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

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

sequences. The film survives, but those sequences are

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

, having been removed for a 1931 re-release and 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 explosively igniting stored nitrate f ...

. Sound from the lost color sequences 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 from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one th ...

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 an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...