The Glenn Miller Story (1954)
 The
Glenn Miller Story is one of the most touching and durable of
all Hollywood musical biopics thanks to a convincing,
three-dimensional performance by Jimmy Stewart as the beloved
bandleader whose smoothly swinging style was as much a part of the
American fabric during World War II as bobby sox and bacon
rations.
The intelligent script tells the appealing story of a restless
small-town boy who had a consuming ambition to play the trombone
in a dance band, to get ahead in the music world, and to develop
his own orchestra with a personality and a sound unique in popular
music.
It follows the no-nonsense pattern of Miller's life without
hokum thrown in to jazz up the story, and it ends as his life
actually ended with his disappearance in a military plane in 1944.
June Allyson got one of the plum roles of her career as the
girl who snagged the guy and married him, and there are marvellous
guest appearances by Louis Armstrong, Frances Langford, Gene Krupa
and the Modernaires.
Dozens of Glenn Miller hits are here, their original
arrangements enhanced by newly mastered stereophonic sound.
The musical sequences are beautifully and artfully
photographed, the direction by Anthony Mann is solid and the
entire film has an unpretentious sweetness that throbs with tender
sentiments. A fine and timeless little gem indeed.
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