The unemployed trombone player, Glenn Miller is always broke, chasing his sound to form his band and buying back his instrument in the pawn house to survive. When his friend Chummy MacGregor is hired to play in the band of Ben Pollack, the band-leader listens to one of Glenn's compositions and invites him to join his band. While travelling to New York, Glenn visits his former girlfriend Helen Berger, in Boulder, Colorado, and pleads with her to wait for him. Two years later he quits the band and proposes to Helen and they move to New York to marry. After the success of 'Moonlight Serenade', Glenn Miller's band became known worldwide. Glenn and Helen go on to have two children and have a very comfortable life. During World War II, Glenn enlists in the army and travels to Europe to increase the morale of the allied troops by playing his music to the soldiers. In the Christmas of 1944, he travels from London to Paris for a concert which will be broadcast, however, his plane is lost and never found. This is a great biography depicting the life of the amazing musician and composer Glenn Miller, a vibrant tribute charting Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s. James Stewart takes on the role of the legendary bandleader and does an amazing job at bringing this historical figure to life, just as the film brings all the beautiful sounds alive once more. Stewart is one of my favourite actors who has starred in so many great films that I love such as: It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Rear Window (1954). I have thoroughly enjoyed all his roles in every single one of his films and this was no exception. As a huge fan of Miller's music and all of the period music, I found this film to be incredibly fascinating to learn about the man who brought new sounds that changed music, even drastically shaping the era of its release. I find his music to be so captivating and I can only imagine how it was received when it came out for the first-ever time. In this biography, we see Miller from his earliest years at his poorest and most ambitious stages to his rise to fame and his mysterious disappearance (and likely death). It is still crazy to think how he just suddenly vanished. It was a really big shock and shame to the world with all the wonderful music that he brought to so many people worldwide. It will have been an even bigger fright and sadness to his wife and children who never found out what happened on that fateful flight. What makes it even worse is that he was lost during Christmas, the most happiest time of the year. He went missing on the 15th of December, 1944. My favourite musical pieces from Miller have to be both 'In the Mood' and 'Moonlight Serenade' and this film brings them alongside so many other hits to our screens. I further loved how they represented the effects the music had on the wider population, especially during the war where it boosted morale during the most trying of times. Another highlight of this movie that I liked, was the relationship between Glenn and Helen, played by June Allyson. They were simply perfect together and were shown to be so very happy and their romantic chemistry is overflowing in all their scenes together, which makes it all the more upsetting to think about how he would later disappear on that flight. Other supporting well-known musicians feature in this film, from Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and Frances Langford to The Mondernaires. Overall, I extremely enjoyed this film mainly due to my being a huge Glenn Miller and James Stuart fan. I especially loved hearing all of his iconic music in a whole new way and there is plenty to fall in love with all over again with them being played throughout. It is so interesting seeing his life story and learning more about the magnificent band leader. The Glenn Miller Story is undoubtedly a film for fans of Miller that shouldn't be overlooked. It is a phenomenal biography, with an amazing cast rounding it off as a great look into a musical legend's life.
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