Sally (1929 film)

Sally
Sally
	theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Francis Dillon
Written by	Waldemar Young ; A.P. Younger
Based on	Sally; 1920 musical; by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse
Starring	Marilyn Miller; Alexander Gray; Joe E. Brown; Pert Kelton
Cinematography	Dev Jennings; Charles Edgar Schoenbaum (Technicolor)
Edited by	LeRoy Stone
Music by	Jerome Kern ; Leonid S. Leonardi; Irving Berlin; Al Dubin; Joe Burke
Color process	Technicolor Two-Strip (original)
Production; company	First National Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	December 23, 1929;
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$647,000
Box office	$2,198,000

Sally is a 1929 American Pre-Code film. It is the fourth all-sound, all-color feature film made, and it was photographed in the Technicolor process. It was the sixth feature film to contain color that had been released by Warner Bros.; the first five were The Desert Song (1929), On with the Show! (1929), Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), Paris (1929) and The Show of Shows (1929). (Song of the West was completed by June 1929, but had its release delayed until March 1930). Although exhibited in a few theaters in December 1929, Sally entered general release on January 12, 1930.

The film was based on the Broadway stage hit Sally, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld and retains three of the stage production's Jerome Kern songs ("Look for the Silver Lining", "Sally" and "Wild Rose"). The film's other music was written by Al Dubin and Joe Burke.^[2]

Marilyn Miller, who had played the leading part in the Broadway production, was hired by Warner Bros. for an extravagant sum (reportedly $1,000 per hour for a total of $100,000) to star in the film.^[3]

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction by Jack Okey in 1930.^[4]^[5]

Plot

Sally is an orphan who had been abandoned as a baby. While living in an orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. In an attempt to save enough money to become a dancer, Sally began working odd jobs. While she is working as a waitress,^[6] a man named Blair comes to see her regularly, and they fall in love. However, Sally does not know that Blair has been forced by his family into an engagement with a socialite named Marcia.

Theatrical agent Otis Hemingway Hooper offers Sally a chance to audition for a job, but she loses her current job and the audition opportunity when she accidentally drops food into Hooper's lap. Sally takes a job at the Elm Tree Inn, managed by Pops Stendorff. Blair visits and immediately takes an interest in Sally. He convinces Stendorff to have Sally dance for his customers. Hooper recognizes Sally's talent during her performance at the inn and becomes her agent, convincing Sally to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova and perform at a party hosted by Mrs. Ten Brock. When Pops Stendorff discovers that Sally is missing, he crashes the party, intending to take her back to the inn for a performance. Sally is revealed to be an impostor and Mrs. Ten Brock insists that she leave immediately. However, before leaving, Sally hears Mrs. Ten Brock announce of the engagement of Blair and Marcia.

Sally is devastated but later learns that she has been discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld, a guest at the party. Sally's manager presents her with a contract to star in Ziegfeld's next follies show on Broadway. After a successful opening night, Sally is visited in her dressing room by Pop Stendorff with flowers and a card from Blair, who has ended his engagement with Marcia. She soon discovers that Blair is also there, and he requests her forgiveness. Later, Sally and Blair emerge from a church after being married. Photographers rush them, urging them to kiss.

Cast

Marilyn Miller as Sally/Noskerova
Alexander Gray as Blair Farrell
Joe E. Brown as Grand Duke Constantine
T. Roy Barnes as Otis Hemingway Hooper
Pert Kelton as Rosie, Otis' girlfriend
Ford Sterling as 'Pops' Stendorff
Maude Turner Gordon as Mrs. Ten Brock
E. J. Ratcliffe as John Farquar
Jack Duffy as The Old Roue
Nora Lane as Marcia

Box office

According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $1,219,000 domestically and $979,000 foreign.^[1]

Preservation

Although never technically a lost film, Sally was unavailable for public viewing for nearly six decades. Warner Bros. sold the rights to its pre-1950 film library to Associated Artists Productions.^[7] It was not until around 1990 that the film became available for archival and revival screenings. However, the film survives only in black and white with a 21⁄2-minute color segment from the "Wild Rose" musical number, which was discovered in the 1990s. Sepia-toned black-and-white footage has been inserted to replace frames missing in the color fragment. In 2014, archivist Malcolm Billingsley discovered a cache of 35mm Technicolor fragments lasting 45-75 seconds, including a 29-second fragment from the first reel.^[8] ^[9] ^[10]

In 2022, an unofficial reconstructed colorized version was made available online.^[11]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 10 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
^ Bradley, Edwin M. (1996). The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 Through 1932. McFarland & Company. pp. 87–90.
^ Photoplay, September 1929
^ "NY Times: Sally". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2012. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
^ Sally at silentera.com
^ The Brooklyn Citizen (Brooklyn, New York) · March 15, 1930, Sat · Page 2
^ 1957 MOVIES FROM AAP Warner Bros Features & Cartoons SALES BOOK DIRECTED AT TV
^ Fernandes, Jane (July 17, 2018). "Hidden treasure in a film can: notes on our Technicolor rediscovery". BFI.
^ "Sally - 1929 Technicolor Fragment". YouTube. April 6, 2021.
^ Hutchinson, Ron (September 1, 2014). "Vitaphone News: Volume 12, Number 4". The Vitaphone Project.
^ "Sally 1929 All Technicolor Musical Comedy with Marilyn Miller".