The Sun Comes Up (1949)

THE SUN COMES UP (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1948), directed by Richard Thorpe, is a sentimental drama notable for being both movie featuring the famous collie by the name of Lassie, introduced five years earlier in LASSIE COME HOME (MGM, 1943), and the final movie appearance of opera singer/actress, Jeanette MacDonald. MacDonald has come a long way in movies by this point, making her film debut in THE LOVE PARADE (Paramount, 1929), starring Maurice Chevalier, with whom she teamed in three more musical-comedies. Aside from non-musical works for other studios such as Fox, she found both home and success at MGM starting in 1934, where the studio developed her talents more towards opera, with a new screen partner being Nelson Eddy. By the 1940s, her style of movies began to wane, marking the close for MGM by 1942. In 1948, she returned to the screen, and MGM, this time playing singing-mother roles starting with THREE DARING DAUGHTERS. Whether MacDonald intended on ending her movie career or not with THE SUN COMES UP is uncertain. At least she managed to hold her own against her scene stealing co-stars, especially from the dog named Lassie. Plot summary: Helen Lorfield Winter (Jeanette MacDonald) is a widowed mother with a teenage son, Hank (Dwayne Hickman) with a collie, Lassie, who adores him. Since the death of her husband, Helen has devoted her time towards her family and home life. A former opera singer by profession, and through the assistance of her manager, Arthur Norton (Lewis Stone), Helen gets her new beginning returning to concert singing for the first time in three years. Her concert proves successful, but her happiness is shattered by the sudden death of her son after getting struck by a passing truck while trying to prevent Lassie from getting hit while on the street. Weeks pass. Helen gives up her career. Unable to be around people, especially children, Helen packs up her belongings to go someplace far away to forget. Though she blames Lassie for her son's death, she takes Lassie with her anyway on a car trip leading her to Bushy Gap, a hillbilly residence located somewhere in the mountains. Helen's new beginning restarts as she rents a furnished home belonging to the out-of-town, Thomas I. Chandler. She soon finds herself disliked by town folks through her attitude towards their children. Through the kindly but blunt assistance of storekeeper, William B. Willigoode (Percy Kilbride), who tells her the truth about herself, Helen's attitude soon changes, especially after meeting with a teenage boy named Jerry (Claude Jarman Jr.). After saving Lassie from a rattlesnake, Helen hires Jerry as her handyboy. Though fond of Jerry, she knows very little about him. It takes her landlord, Thomas Chandler (Lloyd Nolan), having returned from his trip, to let her figure things out for herself. Others in the cast include: Hope Landin (Mrs. Pope); Nicholas Joy (Victor Alvord); Mickey McGuire (Cleaver) and Teddy Infuhr (Junebug). Not the typical MacDonald movie from the past, THE SUN COMES UP, actually resembles that of an episode from a "Lassie" television series a decade later. Though second billed, Lloyd Nolan comes in 63 minutes into the start of the movie, while Claude Jarman Jr., best known for his performance in THE YEARLING (MGM, 1946), takes up much of the proceedings playing a likable harmonica teenager who bonds well with Lassie. Being more drama than musical, the presence of comical types as Percy Kilbride, Margaret Hamilton and Ida Moore, highlight greatly to its lighter moment. Even MacDonald does a brief comedy turn for one scene involving snuff. Because of MacDonald's reputation as a singer, song numbers are inserted into the story, including: "Un Bel De Vedremo" from Giacomo Puccini's MADAME BUTTERFLY; "Songs My Mother Taught Me" by Antonin Dvorak; Rene Rabey's "Tes Jolies Yeux" "Cousin Ebenezer" (with MacDonald and group of orphan boys); and "If You Were Mine" by Artur Rubenstein. THE SUN COMES UP may not be a MacDonald favorite for anyone in favor of her singing opposite Nelson Eddy in eight musicals from 1935 to 1942, or working opposite Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy in SAN FRANCISCO (MGM, 1936), but it is satisfactory screen entertainment of MGM's 93 minutes of Technicolor family style mode. Formerly available on video cassette and later on DVD, THE SUN COMES UP, can often be found on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. (**1/2)

When the film begins, Helen (Jeanette MacDonald) is about to give a concert--her first since the death of her husband. However, after the concert, her dog, Lassie, runs into the road...and Helen's son is killed trying to catch him. Not surprisingly, Helen is NOT thrilled about keeping Lassie, but does. But she also needs a change and so runs off to the country to get away from it all. There she meets some lovely people...including a teenager (Claude Jarman Jr.) who is in need of a good home. While there is zero surprise in how the film ends up there, the story is enjoyable along the way. Like nearly all the Lassie films, this one is a winner....even if Lassie himself (yes, it's a HE) is a very bad dog in this one! By the way, this was Jeanette MacDonald's last film. And, oddly, she looks pretty horrible in this one due to the garish colors in the Technicolor film. She looked much better in black & white and the colors they chose for her were frankly not very flattering.

There are conflicts in reviews I've read of this in my earlier research of the film. Some people refer to this as a "Lassie" film which happens to star Jeanette MacDonald, while others refer to it as just the opposite. For MacDonald to go from her long teaming with Nelson Eddy to the queen of canine movie stars might have seemed literally like going to the dogs, but the results of the film prove otherwise. Jeanette and Lassie definitely share the responsibility for making this one of the most delightful family films, written by the author of "The Yearling", and featuring its star, Claude Jarman Jr. in a most sensitive performance that is a joy to behold.MacDonald is a widowed opera star who is returning to the concert scene when tragedy strikes her once again. She moves to the country, reluctantly taking along Lassie, yet initially shunning any contact with the locales, especially the children. But the local store owner's handy boy (Jarman) makes a quick impression on her (literally helping save Lassie from a rattle snake), and her closed heart begins to re-open. MacDonald begins to come back to life and is considering another concert tour when she comes to terms with the needs that are really important for her and for the people she's come to love.The gorgeous color photography makes this an absolute joy to look at, filled with country sides and sunsets and rolling meadows in the hills. Percy Kilbride gives an amusing performance as the country store owner (William Goode-the e is not silent), with Margaret Hamilton and Ida Moore as two local women who are experts with snuff, and Lloyd Nolan as the owner of the house MacDonald rents who comes in late to the story and provides the moral of the story. Lewis Stone has a small role as one of MacDonald's advisers early in the film. She gets to sing a few songs (even an aria from "Madame Butterfly"), and for once, you can actually hear all the lyrics she is singing.It must have seemed a comedown for Jeanette (here in her last film) to possibly take second fiddle to a dog, but she manages to rise above that thought, still looking equally as gorgeous as she had ten years before. It is a shame that she didn't make any films after this, because she is far from being beyond her prime, and mixes both comedy and pathos with dignity and beauty.

Except for the fact that I feel that MacDonald quit films because being paired with a dog was pretty much the last straw, I think that.so far, everything that's needed to be said has been said--although I'm sure that someone else will come up with something new observation.Viewers and fans always do with each viewing of the film. You get more and more perspectives as time goes by.But for me, I couldn't help but notice two things that strangely make a future connection to a future TV show which would become as much as a legend as Lassie.One is Barbara Billingsly (Beaver's mom) playing a nurse.The other is a kid named Mickey McGuire (Didn't Mickey Rooney use that name for a while when he was acting in the silents? Got it after playing the lead character in a series of "Toonerville Trolley" films based on the Fontaine Fox comic strip). He plays a boy named Cleaver! Somewhat odd and prophetic that the name and the actress should be in the same movie, don't you think?