'Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

  This is another of my old-ass musicals but this one is legitimate.  It's a biopic of songwriter Jerome Kern, who you've heard of even if you don't realize it.    His biggest musical was Show Boat, which was turned into a movie and launched the career of Ava Gardner.  His songs went on to be jazz standards for Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, among others ("I Won't Dance" and "A Fine Romance").  It's less of an accomplishment now, since no one's heard of it, but he also the musical that inspired the movie production of Sunny.  He won 2 Oscars and was nominated for 6 more.

This movie plays like a who's-who of talent.  Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Van Johnson, Angela Lansbury (looking very hittable), and Judy Garland are all featured.  Vincente Minnelli directed his wife's musical scenes and is otherwise not associated with this film.  That's just a fun fact!

The whole film is told as a flashback after the successful opening of Show Boat on Broadway.  Kern directs his chauffeur to the brownstone where he met his mentor, Jim Hessler and then it chronicles his career.  After having been discouraged by the current trend of Broadway producers only buying English shows, Kern moves to London, meeting his future wife as well as legendary producer Charles Frohman. Frohman likes him so much, he hires him for a show back in New York, forcing the lovers apart.  Things go well for a time, giving Hessler and Kern time to write an entire musical only to be told that Mr. Frohman wouldn't be able to hear it because he was setting sail for England once more...on board the Lusitania.

Is it bad that I laughed myself sick when the camera panned over the name of the ship?  I wanna say that's bad.  It is funny the little coincidences that happen in life.  Kern only just missed the boarding of that ship. ( They water down the circumstances for the movie, depicting him as having worked all night writing songs when he actually was hungover after poker night.)

At any rate, after that brush with death, Kern went on to have many long-running musicals on Broadway in a career that lasted four decades.  So there you go.