Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

mike48128 Fully restored on TCM, the last 20 minutes are completely red with curiously red clouds. Is this a color statement like "South Pacific" or due to the aging of the master print? It almost looks like the "red-only" Technicolor film element. The "Hollywood" biography of legendary songwriter Jerome Kern. It starts out wonderful, with an almost half-hour mini-medley of the entire "Showboat" songbook, then starts to disappoint, with uneven musical performances, by a cavalcade of stars. Some pieces are brilliant, and some are almost boring, as not all the songs by Kern were created equal. Some songs are not presented in chronological order, which is a writing or editing error. As a biography, it seems tedious at times but charming as well. The English Garden sequence, (how Kern met his wife) was actually shot in America, and is rather well-done. A great cast, with good performances by June Allyson, Lucille Bremer, Kathryn Greyson, Van Heflin and many others. "Roberta" is danced by Cyd Charisse and Gower Champion. The most notable performances, in my opinion, are by Dinah Shore, Judy Garland, and Lena Horne. ("The "Leave it to Jane" number, by June Allyson, is very good, but the song is unmemorable.)The title tune, "Til the Clouds Roll by", is uninspiring, and mimics "Singin' in the Rain". The last 20 minutes, besides being all-red and faded-looking, are tedious, and the repeated song finale of "Old Man River" falls flat, as Frank Sinatra is not the right man to do justice to this monumental song. The film runs over 140 minutes, restored. Some "public domain" prints often ran only 120 minutes, entirely eliminating the 20-minute medley-of-hits finale.

SHAWFAN Yes, Robert Walker was not a great Jerome Kern and Van Heflin was completely fictional, and yes, the story line was tedious and sappy, but...all those incredible stars in one movie (despite some of the greatest ones like Kally and Astaire and Robeson being left out) in some of the most beautiful songs ever written (some of the greatest ones likewise also left out like "The Way You Look Tonight") just coming at you one after the other in sumptuous settings: what an unrepeatable and irreproducible gem of a movie! And the fact that Kern missed the Lusitania by oversleeping was replaced by a more dramatic plot line that had him trying unsuccessfully to catch that boat (We're all so glad he didn't!) and follow Frohman to England I thought was an actual dramatic improvement on what really happened.But you know, to me the most telling aspect of the whole movie which reflected so perfectly American mores and prejudices of the day was the fact that nowhere in the movie was the fact alluded to that Jerome Kern was---Jewish! And to this day none of your 40 other reviewers betrayed an awareness of this fact. The Jewish movie studio heads like Louis B. Mayer and Arthur Freed were not about to compromise the success of their glorious effort by turning any portion of the movie-going public off. But that thick American anti-Semitism of the day was about to receive its rebuke just a few seasons later in Gregory Peck's Gentlemen's Agreement.An incredible video has just been released by National Public Television on the Jewish heritage in the American popular musical. And astonishing as it is to realize that with the exception of George M. Cohan and Victor Herbert (Irish), Cole Porter (Christian denomination?) and Andrew Lloyd Weber (?) all the great Broadway composers and lyricists from Jerome Kern to Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim have indeed been Jewish and Jerome Kern was one of the greatest of them all. But this movie did its best to keep all that a secret (and succeeded.)

MartinHafer This star-studded film begins with the words "....based on the life of Jerome Kern" appearing on the screen. "Based on" is a code phrase which, to Hollywood, means "...has VERY little to do with the life of..."! I've seen lots of based on films--and each one left me wanting to know the REAL life of the subject of the film! And, considering that Kern himself felt his life was too boring for a movie, MGM decided to 'spice it up' a bit.What this film really is, is not so much a biography of Kern but a cavalcade of MGM talent performing his songs with a very tenuous plot holding them all together. While folks back in 1946 might have loved this, I found the number of songs to be a bit overwhelming and it needed more story. In fact, though it looked nice, I think the film was dreadfully dull. I would have hated to have paid to see this in the theaters back in 1946. I only give it a score as high as 4 because the musical numbers, while unnecessary at times, were well done. If you do watch, pay attention to Frank Sinatra singing "Old Man River"--he totally botches it and he's so, so wrong for the song.

j-lacerra Till the Clouds Roll By is a collection of Jerome Kern tunes strung together by a plot that is supposed to be Kern's bio. We get no struggle or conflict from the bio; apparently Kern was immediately successful. Robert Walker, an actor of high potential, is miscast as Kern and asea in this role. But, IMHO, the real letdown in this picture is the lackluster music. Either the performances are second-rate or I just don't like Kern's stuff. I never have liked Show Boat (except for 'Old Man River'), and this did nothing to change that opinion.Van Heflin seems as out of place as Walker, here in a role as Kern's fictional buddy Hessler. And many of the dance numbers seem as if the dancers were just plodding through. Not the usual high MGM musical standard.Revelations: Angela Lansbury can actually sing and dance! Dinah Shore had an incredible slim-waisted shape! Jerome Kern was an incredibly boring individual! A last resort watch (I got mine from the $1 rack).