Smilin' Through is a 1941 MGM

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 based on the 1919 play of the same name by Jane Cowl

Jane Cowl

Jane Cowl was an American film and stage actress and playwright "notorious for playing lacrymose parts". Actress Jane Russell was named in Cowl's honor.-Biography:...

 and Jane Murfin.

The film was a remake of a previous 1932 version

Smilin' Through (1932 film)

Smilin' Through is a 1932 MGM film based on the play by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin, also named Smilin' Through.The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1932. It was adapted from Cowl and Murfin's play by James Bernard Fagan, Donald Ogden Stewart, Ernest Vajda and Claudine...

 by MGM and was the third and final film version of the play. It starred Jeanette MacDonald

Jeanette MacDonald

Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...

, Brian Aherne

Brian Aherne

Brian Aherne was a British actor of both stage and screen, who found success in Hollywood.-Early life and stage career:...

 and Ian Hunter

Ian Hunter (actor)

Ian Hunter was a British character actor.Among dozens of film roles, his best-remembered appearances include That Certain Woman with Bette Davis, The Adventures of Robin Hood , The Little Princess and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...

. It was filmed in Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

and was remade as a musical for MacDonald with several older songs interpolated into the story. The plot remained essentially the same as in the play and previous film versions.