A Musical June: Sunny Side Up (1929)

This month, we turn to a trio of musicals from the Golden Age of Hollywood, notable and seldom seen.

RODNEY BOWCOCK: Well, here’s a plot that you know well whether you’ve seen this movie or not. If you’re a classic movie fan, you certainly know all about the stories of a poor girl from the lower eastside who meets a rich society fella and falls in love, only to have their economic differences get in the way. That’s what we have here. However, as sometimes happens, the plot is really just something to hold together an assortment of musical numbers and routines. If it sounds like I’m simplifying it, maybe I am, but not by much.

SAMANTHA GLASSER: Scott Eyman wrote that the film, "opens with a tour de force crane shot that examines a tenement block, roaming up the street, rising to peer into windows, falling to examine the passersby on the sidewalk. The film is otherwise interminable and quickly declines into stylistic orthodoxy, but changes were clearly coming, and not a moment too soon."

RB: Can you imagine what a “Wow!” moment it must’ve been to be in a grand movie house in 1929 and see that shot in shimmering nitrate? It’s a highlight of the movie and likely something that we’ll never get to experience as it was truly intended.

SG: A two-hour runtime for a pre-1940s film is always a shock to me, especially for an early talkie when so many movies ran right around an hour in length. The reason for this film's duration is the many musical numbers and skits, and the pacing of the sound sequences, presumably to prevent actors from stepping on each other's lines. I enjoyed the songs quite a bit, and got a kick out of the piece with Jackie Cooper going on stage at the block party to recite poetry, though it easily could have been excised for time.

RB: I’ve become a fan of movies that are short and sweet and a runtime like this always gives me pause before I start watching, this one seemed in many ways to be a series of Vitaphone-like shorts strung together. Not a true patchwork like say, Hollywood Revue of 1929, or maybe The Broadway Melody, but definitely a film where the main attraction is that the characters talk.

SG: It is clear this is the first talkie for Gaynor and Farrell. In one scene, she bites into a pickle, then rubs her stomach to show she likes it, a broad gesture for an audience raised on sound films, but a perfectly appropriate one for a silent audience.

RB: Yes, their first talkie, although Lucky Star DID have talking sequences and it’s their fourth pairing overall. While not the first great couple of the silver screen, they certainly were among the first few and they were arguably the only ones that continued together into the sound era, which is quite a feat into itself.

SG: Back in my earliest days discovering silent movies, I kept coming across rave reviews of Gaynor/Farrell films 7th Heaven and Street Angel, but I didn't have TCM and they weren't released on home video yet. My first exposure to their work was Lucky Star, which I loved in spite of the awful quality of the bootleg I watched. It is true their sound films are much weaker than their silent pairings, but they have good chemistry together and winning youthful personalities.

RB: Showing an area in which I’m lacking, my only real knowledge of those films is that Charles Farrell would pop up on some radio program that I had listened to some time back and there was a running gag over several episodes where he would refer to himself as “CHARLES FARRELL OF SEVENTH HEAVEN”.

SG: That's great fun! And interesting since Farrell's voice was gradually deemed unfit for sound films that he would wind up on radio.

It is noteworthy that some of the tropes used in romantic comedies and TV dramas were already in evidence almost 100 years ago. Marjorie White and Peter Gawthorne play the spunky best friend couple to Gaynor's Molly, a more subdued and traditionally pretty girl.

El Brendel seems to be a highly divisive character among movie enthusiasts. I've never come across someone who had lukewarm feelings about him. I land in the fan camp; I find him to be charming and funny.

RB: As you suggest, Brendel is just fine here. And he usually is just fine if his material is good. I will go on record stating that I am of the opinion that his material often was not good. But that’s not the case here.

SG: "Yes, it's corny and it runs too long, and then there's Farrell's voice and clueless line readings," wrote Richard Barrios. "What's more important is the assurance of the filmmaking, which has little of the stolid quality or timidity that hinders so many 1929 films. It really does act and move like a film, instead of a transplanted stage show, and Gaynor carries the whole thing like a major-league pro."

Indeed, her star was on the rise, while Farrell's seemed to have begun to stagnate. Just prior to shooting this film, Gaynor was invited to place her hand and footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and Farrell was not. They renegotiated their contracts with Fox, and Gaynor secured a $4000 bonus, but Farrell did not.

RB: Some reviewers have noted that Farrell didn’t really seem to know what he was doing in this film, referring to it as “simply awful” and while that’s a harsh criticism, it would be difficult to argue. What is interesting is that the film largely does overcome that. We watched a few musicals from this era at the Picture Show this year, and while they did bear the hallmarks of stage shows being filmed that Barrios illudes to, this is a move in and of itself. Was it the first musical that was not based on a stage play? I don’t know for sure, but that certainly seems possible.

SG: The song "I'm a Dreamer" is a lovely, wistful song, made somewhat jarring by the fact that Gaynor sings portions of it directly into the camera. She had absolutely no vocal training and her tiny voice is obviously amateur, but that adds to its appeal. The title song has a sing-along section, which I imagine would be great fun to experience with an uninhibited audience.

Of "Turn Up the Heat," Richard Barrios wrote, "The dance director, Seymour Felix, kindly saw to it that not one phallic allusion would be overlooked, nor one dancer show any inhibition or propriety. What it lacks in taste, it more than makes up for in sheer brass."

RB: Oh, “Turn Up the Heat” is a perfect example of the kind of thing I love that happens in movies like this. Straight out of the Busby Berkeley playbook (but earlier!) if you only watch one part of this movie, it’s this number that you need to see. Completely insane and delightful.

SG: This wasn't my first time watching this movie, and I remembered very little about it other than the fact that it was pleasant. This pass was a positive experience overall, though the film is not without its flaws. Three stars.

RB: This was a new one to me, and while it wasn’t perfect, I certainly enjoyed myself. Three stars.