Trailer
Plot summary
Jerome Kern's rise as a composer is framed by the 1927 premiere of Show Boat, the musical that made his name. From there he recalls his early years, when he met Jim Hessler, who became his musical mentor, and Hessler's small daughter Sally, and grew close to the two of them. On a later visit to London, a day at the fair with Sally gives Kern the idea for a stage production. A song of his in a London revue brings him to the notice of the producer Charles Frohman. Kern falls for Eva Leale the moment they meet, yet work calls him back to New York to get The Girl from Utah ready for its Broadway opening.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Gene Kelly was intended to play Jerome Kern, with Gloria DeHaven, Jacqueline White, Imogen Carpenter and Jeanette MacDonald in major parts, but none of them appeared in the finished film.
- Judy Garland shot her Marilyn Miller sequences before principal photography began because she was pregnant and due in March 1946; her work was finished on November 8, 1945.
- An excised Judy Garland number survives, with Garland as Marilyn Miller singing "D'Ya Love Me?" to two clowns in a circus setting, though part of its soundtrack is lost.
- The film was among the first to have a soundtrack album come out at the same time it hit theaters. MGM Records put it out as four 78-rpm records.
- It was the first of MGM's biopics about Broadway composers, followed by Words and Music (Rodgers and Hart, 1948), Three Little Words (Kalmar and Ruby, 1950) and Deep in My Heart (Sigmund Romberg, 1954).
- The film entered the public domain 28 years after production because MGM did not renew the copyright, making it one of the more widely circulated MGM musicals on home video.
