By Violet LeVoit
Sally
Brief Synopsis
A waitress dreams of becoming a Broadway star.
Cast & Crew
Read More
John Francis Dillon
Director
Marilyn Miller
Sally
Alexander Gray
Blair Farquar
Joe E. Brown
Connie [The Grand Duke]
T. Roy Barnes
Otis Hooper
Pert Kelton
Rosie, his girl friend
Film Details
Genre
Musical
Adaptation
Comedy
Release Date
Jan
12,
1929
Premiere Information
New York premiere: 23 Dec 1929
Production Company
First National Pictures
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the musical Sally , book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Clifford Grey (New York, 21 Dec 1920).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 43m
Sound
Vitaphone
Color
Black and White, Color (2-strip Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.33 : 1
Film Length
9,277ft
(12 reels)
Synopsis
Sally, a cafe hostess and orphan, aspires to become a dancer. She is loved by Blair Farquar, of an aristocratic family, though his father has arranged a match with Marcia Ten Brock. Forced to leave the cafe when she spills food on the suit of Otis Hooper, a booking agent, she gets a job at the Balkan Tavern, run by "Pops" Shendorff, onetime supporter of a former grand duke who now works as a waiter and is known as Connie. Encouraged to dance for the customers, Sally is a sensation, and when Hooper engages her to impersonate a Russian dancer who has eloped, she and Connie are lionized at Mrs. Ten Brock's party. When Sally learns Farquar is engaged to Marcia, however, she leaves the party in despair. Hooper finds her in a tenement and stars her in his follies, and on her opening night, she is reunited with her lover. Their marriage follows.
Director
John Francis Dillon
Director
Cast
Marilyn Miller
Sally
Alexander Gray
Blair Farquar
Joe E. Brown
Connie [The Grand Duke]
T. Roy Barnes
Otis Hooper
Pert Kelton
Rosie, his girl friend
Ford Sterling
"Pops" Shendorff
Maude Turner Gordon
Mrs. Ten Brock
Nora Lane
Marcia, her daughter
E. J. Ratcliffe
John Farquar, Blair's father
Jack Duffy
The Old Roué
Albertina Rasch Ballet
Crew
Joe Burke
Composer
Larry Ceballos
Dance Director
B. G. Desylva
Composer
Al Dubin
Composer
Leo Forbstein
Music
Clifford Grey
Composer
Dev Jennings
Director of Photography
Jerome Kern
Composer
C. Edgar Schoenbaum
Director of Photography
Edward Stevenson
Costumes
Jack Stone
Art Director
Leroy Stone
Film Editor
Waldemar Young
Screenwriter
Waldemar Young
Dial
Film Details
Genre
Musical
Adaptation
Comedy
Release Date
Jan
12,
1929
Premiere Information
New York premiere: 23 Dec 1929
Production Company
First National Pictures
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the musical Sally , book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Clifford Grey (New York, 21 Dec 1920).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 43m
Sound
Vitaphone
Color
Black and White, Color (2-strip Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.33 : 1
Film Length
9,277ft
(12 reels)
Award Nominations
Best Art Direction
1930
Articles
Sally (1930) -
After Warner's success with On With The Show (1929), executives quickly made plans for more all talking, all color movies like this one, a "working girl makes good" fable about a waitress (Marilyn Miller) who, after being discovered on the job by theatrical agent Otis Hooper (T. Roy Barnes), uses her natural hoofing ability to work her way through the song-and-dance ranks and emerge triumphant on Broadway. The Jerome Kern song 'Look For The Silver Lining" appears here, long before before its renditions by Judy Garland (once, while playing Miller in Till The Clouds Roll By [1946]) became inexorably linked with the ill-fated child star. The original print was two-strip Technicolor, but, like many early color movies, only black and white prints remain. Fortuitously, however, when portions of the "Wild Rose" number were uncovered in the 1990s, they were restored into extant prints. Marilyn Miller's blonde joie de vivre in that number makes it easy to see why 20th cent executive Ben Lyon would later christen Norma Jeane after her as "Marilyn Monroe".
By Violet LeVoit
By Violet LeVoit
Sally (1930) -
After Warner's success with On With The Show (1929), executives quickly made plans for more all talking, all color movies like this one, a "working girl makes good" fable about a waitress (Marilyn Miller) who, after being discovered on the job by theatrical agent Otis Hooper (T. Roy Barnes), uses her natural hoofing ability to work her way through the song-and-dance ranks and emerge triumphant on Broadway. The Jerome Kern song 'Look For The Silver Lining" appears here, long before before its renditions by Judy Garland (once, while playing Miller in Till The Clouds Roll By [1946]) became inexorably linked with the ill-fated child star. The original print was two-strip Technicolor, but, like many early color movies, only black and white prints remain. Fortuitously, however, when portions of the "Wild Rose" number were uncovered in the 1990s, they were restored into extant prints. Marilyn Miller's blonde joie de vivre in that number makes it easy to see why 20th cent executive Ben Lyon would later christen Norma Jeane after her as "Marilyn Monroe".
By Violet LeVoit
Quotes
Trivia
Although this film survives in black and white, the color sequences are lost.
Fragments of the color film for the "Wild Rose" song and dance number were found in the 1990s and have been intercut into the print that Turner Classic Movies shows on its cable channel.
Notes
Remake of the 1925 silent film of the same title.
