Sunny is a 1930 musical comedy film released by Warner Brothers. The movie was based on the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 stage hit, Sunny

Sunny (musical)

Sunny is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and a libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. The plot involves Sunny, the star of a circus act, who falls for a rich playboy, but comes in conflict with his snooty family...

, produced by Charles Dillingham, which played from September 22, 1925 to December 11, 1926. Marilyn Miller

Marilyn Miller

Marilyn Miller was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, but it was the combination of these talents that endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who...

, who had played the leading part in the Broadway production, was hired by Warner Brothers to reprise the role that made her the highest-paid star on Broadway.

Production

The film was completed as a full musical. Due to the backlash against musicals, however, the Warner Bros. were forced to make many cuts to the film and much of the original music is missing or severely truncated. The film had originally been announced as a 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...

 production in trade journals. This was dropped once the studio realized that the public was growing weary of musicals.

Preservation

• The film is in need of restoration. The current circulating print has poor sound that was inappropriately transferred from the original Vitaphone
  Vitaphone
  Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
  
   disks in the 1950s. Original Vitaphone disks are still extant which can be used to properly restore the original sound to the film.

• The film survives only in the cut version which was released in late 1930 by Warner Brothers. Due to the backlash against musicals, the Warner Bros. were forced to cut a lot of the musical sequences before releasing the film.

• The film was released as a full musical outside of the United States, where a backlash against musicals never occurred. It is unknown whether a print of this longer version still exists.

Trivia

• Marilyn Miller was paid $500,000 for her work on this film. She was only paid $100,000 for Sally
  Sally (film)
  Sally is the third all talking-all color movie ever made . The color process of Sally was Technicolor...
  
  (1929), her previous film.

Music

• "The Hunt Dance" (Danced by Marilyn Miller)
• "I Was Alone" (Performed by Marilyn Miller)
• "When We Get Our Divorce" (Danced by Marilyn Miller and Joe Donahue)
• "Who?
  Who? (song)
  "Who?" is a popular song written for the Broadway musical Sunny by Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The song was featured in the film version of Sunny starring Marilyn Miller....
  
  " (Performed by Marilyn Miller and Lawrence Gray)
• "Oh! Didn't He Ramble" (Performed by Lawrence Gray and Men)
• "Sunny" (Cut from film before release)
• "D'Ya Love Me?" (Cut from film before release)
• "Two Little Love Birds" (Cut from film before release)

Cast

• Marilyn Miller
  Marilyn Miller
  Marilyn Miller was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, but it was the combination of these talents that endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who...
  
   - Sunny Peters
• Lawrence Gray
  Lawrence Gray
  Lawrence Gray was an American actor of the 1920s and 1930s.During World War I he served in the U. S. Navy and gained a commission...
  
   - Tom Warren
• Joe Donahue - James Denning
• O. P. Heggie - Mr. Peters
• Inez Courtney
  Inez Courtney
  Inez Courtney was an actress on the Broadway stage and in films. Born in Amsterdam, New York, she came from a large Irish-American family. Her father died when she was fifteen so she decided to go onto the stage...
  
   - Weenie
• Barbara Bedford - Margaret Manners
• Judith Vosselli - Sue Warren
• Clyde Cook
  Clyde Cook (actor)
  Clyde Cook was an Australian born actor whose career spanned the silent film era, talkies and television.He was known as the "Rubber Comedian" because of his ability to bend himself into almost any position...
  
   - Sam
• Mackenzie Ward - Harold Harcourt Wendell-Wendell

uncredited

• Harry Allen - Side Show Barker
• B. F. Blinn - Party Guest
• William B. Davidson
  William B. Davidson
  William B. Davidson was an American film actor. He attended Columbia University where he played football. He became a popular football star. This fame eventually led to his foray into motion pictures after he had spent some time as a lawyer...
  
   - First Ship's Officer
• Jay Eaton - Man 'Weenie' Flirts with at Ball
• Bill Elliott - One of Tom's Friends
• June Gittelson
  June Gittelson
  June Gittelson was an American film actress. She appeared in over 70 films between 1928 and 1945.-Career:Due to her rotund figure, Gittleson was often cast as a love interest who often intimidated her husband or boyfriend...
  
   - Mrs. Hammerslagger
• Ben Hendricks, Jr. - Second Ship's Officer
• Franklin Pangborn
  Franklin Pangborn
  Franklin Pangborn was an American comedic character actor. Pangborn was famous for small, but memorable roles, with a comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W.C. Fields films International House, The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break...
  
   - Party Guest
• Ellinor Vanderveer
  Ellinor Vanderveer
  Ellinor Vanderveer , was an American actress who usually played dowagers, high class society matrons or party guests...
  
  - Party Guest

External links

• Sunny ; allmovie.com