The Sun Comes Up

1949
Approved
1h 33m

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

486

YOUR RATING

Claude Jarman Jr., Jeanette MacDonald, Lloyd Nolan, and Pal in The Sun Comes Up (1949)

Play trailer2:32

1 Video

6 Photos

Drama Family Music

Set in the rural south of the United States, a bereaved war widow learns to to put aside her bitterness and grief as she grows to love a young orphan boy and the dog that belonged to her lat... Read allSet in the rural south of the United States, a bereaved war widow learns to to put aside her bitterness and grief as she grows to love a young orphan boy and the dog that belonged to her late son. Punctuated with song-filled interludes.Set in the rural south of the United States, a bereaved war widow learns to to put aside her bitterness and grief as she grows to love a young orphan boy and the dog that belonged to her late son. Punctuated with song-filled interludes.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

486

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos1

Trailer 2:32

Official Trailer

Photos5

Top cast44

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Jeanette MacDonald

Helen Lorfield Winter

Lloyd Nolan

Thomas I. Chandler

Claude Jarman Jr.

Jerry

Lewis Stone

Arthur Norton

Percy Kilbride

Mr. Willie B. Williegood

Nicholas Joy

Victor Alvord

Margaret Hamilton

Mrs. Golightly

Hope Landin

Mrs. Pope

Esther Somers

Susan - the maid

Pal

Lassie
(as Lassie)

Ed Agresti

Musician
(uncredited)

Jessie Arnold

Townswoman at Fire
(uncredited)

Charles Bates

Orphan
(uncredited)

John Beck

Bit Part
(uncredited)

Bobby Beyers

Orphan
(uncredited)

Barbara Billingsley

Nurse
(uncredited)

Paul E. Burns

Dr. Sample
(uncredited)

John Butler

Hotel Attendant
(uncredited)

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The Sun Comes Up (1949) is mainly based on the 1936 short story "A Mother in Mannville" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. According to the University of South Carolina Libraries description of Rawlings' works, in 1946 MGM asked Rawlings to do a story that could star Lassie with Claude Jarman Jr.. Rawlings started with her 1936 short story "A Mother in Mannville." MGM bought the rights to Rawlings' unpublished story "A Family for Jock," re-titled it "Mountain Prelude," and sold the literary rights to The Saturday Evening Post. The story appeared The Post as a six-part serial during April 26 to May 31, 1947. But it has never been published in novel form.

Goofs
When Jerry finally decides to go play with Lassie, we can hear someone off-screen give Lassie a command. Right after Jerry says,"Let's have fun now," and hugs Lassie, a man's voice clearly speaks a word off-camera, and Lassie looks in that direction before running off with the boy.

Connections
Featured in Legends of World Cinema: Jeanette MacDonald

Soundtracks
Un Bel Di
(uncredited)
from "Madama Butterfly"
Music by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Sung by Jeanette MacDonald

User reviews21

Featured review

6/10

Jeanette Says Farewell

Though she didn't intend The Sun Comes Up to be her final film, it turned out that way for Jeanette MacDonald. In this movie she plays, what else, a concert singer who is a war widow. After a few years of devoting herself to raising her only son, Dwayne Hickman, MacDonald is encouraged by her manager Lewis Stone to go back to the concert stage.

She goes back and becomes a great success in her comeback. But after the concert she sees her son run down by a truck as he was trying to save their collie Lassie from the same fate.

That just about destroys her and who could blame her for wanting to get away from it all. She rents an unused house deep in the Appalachians in North Carolina that's owned by Lloyd Nolan. She and Lassie go to live there and get involved with a group of kids from the county orphanage. Especially one young man, Claude Jarman, Jr., who reminds her of her late son.

Jeanette gets some good opera and concert material to sing, items that were staples in her real concerts. The highlights for me are Un Bel Di from Madame Butterfly and Romance.

And she gets her most cooperative co-star ever in Lassie. The beloved collie pulls off quite a rescue in the climax, but didn't steal any scenes from Jeanette MacDonald.

She never planned that The Sun Comes Up would be her last film. She had a lot of ambitions to return to the screen. During the Fifties she did The King and I in summer stock and hoped to be cast in the film adaption as Anna Leonowens. I think the part would have suited her perfectly and she wouldn't have to have been dubbed as Deborah Kerr was.

And one part she really wanted was as the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. She loved the song Climb Every Mountain. But by the time the film version of Sound of Music was being cast, Jeanette's health was failing.

Still The Sun Comes Up is a fine family film and a fitting end for a screen legend.