The material certainly seemed worthy of the Borzage treatment. MacDonald plays a young Irish lass who, in 1864, chose between two suitors, angering the rejected lover so much he killed her on her wedding day. Many years later, the bereaved groom takes in his orphaned niece, who grows up to be the spitting image of his lost bride. As a young woman, she falls in love with the son of the man who murdered the bride, and her furious guardian forbids her to see him. The course of true love, aided by the spirit of the slain woman, finally triumphs.
MacDonald, who sang nine songs in Smilin' Through, played dual roles as did Gene Raymond, appearing as both the murderously jilted lover and his son. The stars had been wed four years earlier, after MacDonald's romance with her most frequent co-star, Nelson Eddy, ended. It was the only film the husband and wife made together. Perhaps it was because they lacked the famous screen chemistry MacDonald had with Eddy; At one point, Borzage told Raymond, "Don't kiss her as though you're already married; kiss her as though you're in love!". Or it may have been simply that the old story did not resonate with the wartime mood, but Smilin' Through was a flop with both audiences and critics, starting the swift downslide of MacDonald's career.
A dependable, handsome leading man and supporting player of some success in the 1930s, Raymond's career also started to wane after this, and he worked rarely over the next 30 years. For Borzage, too, it was the beginning of the end. Little in his output of 14 more films over the following 20 years had the impact of such work as Street Angel (1928), A Farewell to Arms (1932), History Is Made at Night (1937), or The Mortal Storm (1940).
The studio poured major resources into Smilin' Through. For one of the film's prime locations, an English garden, six hundred shrubs were imported, more than a quarter mile of grass was woven into the set's floor, and three willow trees were planted and replaced several times during the six weeks of filming. Because MacDonald's severe allergies prevented the use of real flowers, thousands of artificial ones were substituted. The 200-foot-long brook used 2,000 gallons of water daily. Among the props were a 175-year-old grandfather clock imported from London by the studio in 1932, an antique desk found in a small Irish hamlet, Viennese tapestries, and Irish lace. MacDonald's dress for the ill-fated wedding was made of the last 75 yards of a priceless crown-patterned French lace that costume designer Adrian had purchased a few years earlier in Paris on a buying trip for Marie Antoinette (1938).
Smilin' Through was filmed in Technicolor, a fact remarked on in some reviews because it brought out MacDonald's red hair. The original cinematographer, Oliver T. Marsh, who had photographed the star in eight previous pictures, died in the early stages of filming. He was replaced by Leonard Smith, who went on to shoot some of the first movies featuring Lassie, MacDonald's canine co-star in her screen farewell, The Sun Comes Up (1949).
Director: Frank Borzage
Producers: Frank Borzage, Victor Saville
Screenplay: Donald Ogden Stewart, John L. Balderston, based on the play by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin
Cinematography: Leonard Smith
Editing: Frank Sullivan
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Original Music: Herbert Stothart (uncredited)
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald (Kathleen/Moonyean Clare), Brian Aherne (Sir John Carteret), Gene Raymond (Ken/Jerry Wayne), Ian Hunter (Rev. Owen Harding), Frances Robinson (Ellen).
C-100m. Closed captioning.
by Rob Nixon
