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Smilin' Through
Production: Early July 1932 - Late August 1932;
Premiere: Not Available;
Released: September 24, 1932;
Production/Distribution Companies: Metro Goldwyn Mayer/Loew's Inc.;
Runtime: 100 min;
Country: USA;
Language: English;
Color: Black and White;
Sound Mix: Mono (Western Electric Sound System);
Available on VHS;
Cast: Norma Shearer as Kathleen [/Moonyean Clare]; Fredric March as Kenneth Wayne [/Jeremy Wayne]; Leslie Howard as John Carteret; O. P. Heggie as Dr. Owen; Ralph Forbes as Willie Ainley; Beryl Mercer as Mrs. Crouch; Margaret Seddon as Ellen; Forrester Harvey as Orderly; Cora Sue Collins as Kathleen as a child;
Production Credits:
Produced by: Irving Thalberg;
Directed by: Sidney Franklin;
Writers: Ernest Vajda; Claudine West; Donald Ogden Stewart; James Bernard Fagan;
Gowns by: Adrian;
Editing: Margaret Booth;
Reviews:
“Gorgeous as is the production, delicate and charming as is every scene, great as the performance is of each member of the cast-this is Norma Shearer’s picture, and one adjective that comes to mind upon seeing her is ‘splendid.’ That Norma could change so suddenly from the sophisticated heroines which she has been creating lately, to this charming, old-fashioned girl, is a great tribute to her versatility.”
Photoplay, November 1932
“Norma Shearer has sprung a surprise on us. Here she has been building up a great reputation as a sophisticate, ever since The Divorcee right through Strange Interlude-and now, suddenly, she turns out the season’s most romantic picture. Sentimentality is written large all over it, but it makes no apologies for the fact; it justifies itself, with its beauty, its charm, its wistful moodiness-and Norma, I suspect, comes closer to making herself unforgettable than in Strange Interlude.”
Movie Classic, December 1932
“Miss Shearer is so earnest, so straightforward and touching, so entirely in the proper romantic mood, that you are reminded that she is an effective sentimental player, if hardly an ideal O’Neill heroine.”
Richard Watts, Jr., in the New York Tribune, October 15, 1932
“Coming very close to being a great motion picture, MGM’s Smilin’ Through is the nature of a showman’s dream come true. Names, story, performances, developments, all are at box office caliber without question. From the play by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin and once a silent picture, the production, though tending in the direction of the sentimental, is yet so well developed, so well performances, that there is nothing of saccharinity about it.”
Motion Picture Herald, October 22, 1932
Norma Shearer, one of the principals in the film version of Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude," now at the Astor, is also to be seen at the Capitol in an audible screen conception of "Smilin' Through," the play by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin, in which Miss Cowl appeared on Broadway thirteen years ago. Norma Talmadge graced the silent pictorial translation of this stage work in 1922.
This current offering is distinguished by the able direction of Sidney Franklin, and also by the presence of a supporting cast that includes Leslie Howard, Fredric March and O. P. Heggie. It is a beautiful production, too immaculate, if anything, in its scenes of the past. It is rich in sentiment, but Mr. Franklin has permitted sufficient gentle comedy to relieve the romance and the tragedy of bygone years. It is another venture that benefits by expert photography, particularly in those scenes in which a wraith-like figure appears and talks. So far as memory serves this new film is infinitely more satisfactory than its voiceless predecessor, but at the same time the suspense is no keener, for with all the irascibility of Kathleen Clare's old guardian, one is never in doubt concerning the trend of events.
Nearly twenty years elapse between an early episode of the picture and the subsequent sequences, and then there is a flash-back into the past to depict the tragedy that befell John Carteret, when he was about to marry the lovely Moonyeen. In the beginning a child named Cora Sue Collins appears as Kathleen, the part later acted by Miss Shearer, and there are some charming scenes between the little girl and Mr. Howard. Another excellent interlude is that in which Kathleen and a friend named Willie Ainley take refuge in an old house that has been closed for many years. It is here that they encounter Kenneth Wayne, played by Mr. March. The pith of the story is the romance between Wayne and Kathleen, neither of whom know that Wayne's father shot and killed Moonyeen, who stepped in front of her intended husband to save him from the bullet. Naturally old Carteret is strongly opposed to any alliance between his ward and young Wayne, who has spent all his life since a small child, in America. He happens to be in England at the time because he has come to join as a soldier in the World War.
Mr. March is very good, although a trifle too flippant at times. He is, however, far better than the ordinary choice for such a rôle. He does make the character determined and sympathetic. Miss Shearer is no less beautiful than she is in "Strange Interlude," but here, occasionally, she is almost too careful about her personal appearance. Mr. Howard's performance is splendid, even though his voice belies his disguise of old age. He is, however, so nicely restrained during his scenes that it is a joy to witness his interpretation at all times. And his chess partner, Major Owen, is admirably acted by Mr. Heggie.
The glimpses of the armistice and the home-coming soldiers are among the many pleasing stretches here. There are constant reminders of the guns in Flanders by the shaking windows, which is a good theatric effect, but a little exaggerated considering the fact that the house where it happens is supposed to be more than a hundred miles from the war zone. But as "Smilin' Through" asks for a good deal of credibility, this matters little.
Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times, October 15, 1932
