Till the Clouds Roll By [VHS]

TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY is one of those great musical biography pictures that only Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer could do so well, TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY highlights the amazing career of composer Jerome Kern. But the film emerges more as an impressively star-studded, two-hour retrospective performance of some of America's greatest tunes. Almost everyone on the M-G-M lot appeared somewhere in the 135 minute Technicolor spectacular, and their presence made the songs and accompanying recreations of famed Broadway production numbers all the more overwhelming. The first twenty minutes of the picture is consumed by the remarkable songs from Kern-Hammerstein's landmark SHOW BOAT, and amazingly, the film builds form there. Robert Walker is perfect as the self-effacing Kern, and the composer's life story provides an apt framework upon which to rest the marvelous musical turns. You'll always remember these seminal melodies that still have the world singing, and gasp at some of the superstars who pop up just to warble a chorus or two of some eternal Jerome Kern composition.