Sunny
About Sunny
Sunny Peters, an American circus performer working in Britain, is engaged to a man she does not love. Former boyfriend Tom Warren stops to see her before his boat to the United States, she stows away, and her father boards at the last moment. On the ship Tom becomes engaged to Margaret Manners, and Sunny, lacking a passport, marries an American friend so she can land. She tells Tom she loves him. Margaret plans to announce her own engagement that night, and Tom proposes as Sunny starts back for England.
Cast & crew
More about Sunny
William A. Seiter directed, Henry McCarty and Humphrey Pearson wrote the screenplay, and LeRoy Stone edited, though Wikidata instead names Billy the Kid as writer. The source is the Broadway musical Sunny, by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach, produced by Charles Dillingham from September 22, 1925, to December 11, 1926. First National released it on November 9, 1930, in black and white after an announced Technicolor musical was cut for the American market.
Themes
Background
The picture followed Miller's Sally and was finished just as studios were stripping songs out of features for the American market.
Making
Warner Bros. cut numbers after the backlash against musicals. The circulating print's sound was taken off the Vitaphone discs in the 1950s in a transfer the Wikipedia page calls poor, and those original discs still exist.
Audiences
Warner Bros. records, as cited on the English Wikipedia, show $537,000 earned domestically and $153,000 foreign.
Look
Ernest Haller and Arthur Reeves photographed it. The announced Technicolor version was not the one released in the United States.
Music
Jerome Kern wrote the music, with Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach. Miller sings "I Was Alone" and, with Gray, "Who?" She dances "The Hunt Dance" and, with Joe Donahue, "When We Get Our Divorce."
Preservation
The surviving copy is the shortened American version released in late 1930. The black-and-white picture is in the Library of Congress. The original Vitaphone discs are extant.
Notes
- Marilyn Miller, who had played Sunny on Broadway, was paid $50,000, after $100,000 for Sally (1929).
- Joe Donahue plays James Denning, the American friend Sunny marries in order to land. O. P. Heggie plays her father.
- Who?" is performed by Miller and Lawrence Gray. "Sunny," "D'Ya Love Me?," and "Two Little Love Birds" were cut before release, though the circus band still plays "Sunny" briefly.
- Outside the United States the film went out as a fuller musical. Wikipedia does not identify a surviving print of that longer version.
- Warner records cited on the page split the gross into $537,000 domestic and $153,000 foreign, which the infobox totals as $690,000.
Scenes
- Sunny marries an American friend on board so she can enter the United States without a passport.
- Tom proposes as she is leaving again for England.
Influenced by
- The Broadway musical Sunny (1925)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Sunny (1930).webm)
