BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Claudio Carvalho The unemployed trombone player Glenn Miller (James Stewart) is always broken, chasing his sound to form his band and hocking his instrument in the pawn house to survive. When his friend Chummy MacGregor (Henry Morgan) is hired to play in the band of Ben Pollack, the band-leader listens to one Glenn's composition and invites him to join his band. While traveling to New York, Glenn visits his former girlfriend Helen Berger (June Allyson), in Boulder, Colorado, and asks her to wait for him. Two years later he quits the band and proposes Helen that moves to New York to marry him. After the success of "Moonlight Serenade", Glenn Miller's band becomes worldwide known and Glenn and Helen and their two children have a very comfortable life. Duting the World War II, Glenn enlists in the army and travels to Europe to increase the moral of the allied troops. In the Christmas of 1944, he travels from London to Paris for a concert to be broadcast; however his plane is never found in the tragic flight.Glenn Miller was the great idol of my father and I recall that in my childhood, he loved the albums (long-plays) of this American musician and usually commented his tragic end. I do not know how many times I listened to hits like "Moonlight Serenade", "String of Pearls", "Pennsylvania 6-5000", "Little Brown Jug", "In the Mood", "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and other Glenn Miller's musics when I was a kid. This is the first time that I watch "The Glenn Miller Story" and the awesome combination of the music of Glenn Miller and James Stewart. Further, the lovely June Allyson shows a wonderful chemistry with James Stewart and together with the stunning Louis Armstrong, Frances Langford, Ben Pollack, Gene Krupa, Barney Bigard, James Young, Marty Napoleon, Arvell Shaw, Cozy Cole, Babe Russin and others personalities, they make a great tribute to a magnificent American musician and composer. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Música e Lágrimas" ("Music and Tears")

rooprect Of all the musical biopics I've seen, The Glenn Miller Story ranks pretty low. That's not to say it was bad; I'm just saying I've enjoyed the others much more. Films like "The Five Pennies" (about Red Nichols), "Til the Clouds Roll By" (Jerome Kern) or even the more recent 70s "Lady Sings the Blues" (Billie Holiday) were much more engaging and memorable to me because those films explored a dramatic conflict in the artist's life. I'm not talking about car chases & explosions; I just think a movie should focus on a particular difficulty that the protagonist must face: recurring obstacles, internal demons, or good old artistic pathos. Something to make it seem like there's a point to the struggle.The Glenn Miller Story had no such conflict. Aside from a few money problems early on (always solved by hocking his horn at a local pawn shop), everything seems to go peachy keen. The whole film is like a gentle sled ride down a bunny slope. This is odd because Glenn's true life story had plenty of drama that could have been brought to the screen. Instead these moments were glossed over--almost as if the filmmakers were purposely trying to avoid any tension or passion. The "conclusion" was handled so vaguely I had to run over to wikipedia to read what really happened.While I was at wikipedia, I learned a whole lot of other interesting things about Glenn Miller--none of which warranted more than a 30 second scene in the film. I'm talking about things like Glenn's "new sound" & how he struggled with it, his efforts to revolutionize the military's musical format & the tremendous resistance he encountered from officers & critics, and, as I mentioned, the VERY intriguing conclusion to his career & life. These major points were presented insufficiently in the film. It seemed like the filmmakers chose to focus more on the feel-good scenes like wedding parties, happy gigs and the happy couple cooing to each other (without ever showing how they fell in love in the first place). I was left in a state of disbelief.It's hard for me to flunk any Jimmy Stewart film, so I'll probably try giving it another viewing someday. Maybe it's a good flick for a warm summer day when you don't want too much drama. But for now, I prefer the other films I mentioned, particularly "The Five Pennies" which really gives you an appreciation for how hard musicians struggle to reach success--and Louis Armstrong vs. Danny Kaye in duelling trumpets is worth the price of admission!Another good biopic which convincingly shows an artist's struggle (though fictionalized) is "Young Man with a Horn" with Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall. If you really want a artistic pathos, of course go for AMADEUS!

Spikeopath This is a very tidy film, it's got intelligence, integrity, and above all else...it doesn't merely rely on great tunes to pass as a Glen Miller story. Perhaps guilty of not fully fleshing out Miller's workaholic pursuit of the life changing sound, it manages to portray very well the grind of being on the road, and essentially it doesn't soft soap the defining moment of Miller's career as the swing sound is literally stumbled upon by accident.James Stewart plays it safe as houses as Miller, it's perfect casting when you think that Miller was such a big household name, something of an American treasure it would seem. Though it should be noted that historians say that the sweet Glen Miller portrayed by James Stewart is not quite in keeping with the real man's persona. Regardless of any character liberty taken, director Anthony Mann crafts a very watchable tale, Stewart and the ever watchable June Allyson as Helen Miller ensure it's a very professional piece, and I dare anyone to not start tapping their feet to those wonderful tunes, but I still think that we are waiting for the definitive Glen Miller picture, some 50 odd years later. As for the ending? Well if it's played out as fact then it's a wonderful finale, but if the makers shoehorned "Little Brown Jug" into the end purely for romanticism? Well that could be construed as dangerously sugar coating what should be a sombre ending to the story. 6.5/10

ianlouisiana Major Miller spent a lot of his war here in the U.K. with the USAAF and frequently broadcast on the BBC ,sometimes using British service musicians. One such,the late Kenny Baker - a fine trumpeter - uncharacteristically starstuck,declared his admiration for the trombonist who looked at him for a minute then said,"Your hat's not on straight". Hard to imagine Mr J.Stewart's genial "aw shucks" bandleader being so hardass,but I guess nice guys finish last in showbiz just like everywhere else. "The Glenn Miller Story" first came to my attention in the mid 1950s when I bought a Louis Armstrong LP which contained a long version of "Basin Street Blues" which,according to the cover,was from the soundtrack of the film.Indeed the song was played by Louis and the All Stars in a nightclub scene where Miller sits in on the trombone,but although the format is similar,it is not the version on the album. I don't think Miller ever seriously considered himself a jazz musician certainly his big bands weren't jazz bands like those of his contemporaries Duke Ellington and Count Basie,but,on a good day with the the wind behind them they chugged along quite happily and fitted in well with the predominately white middle - class culture that haunted the movie - houses and ballrooms in the late 30s and early 40s. Old - timers like myself,hanging grimly on to life,only have to pick up a scratchy 78 of "String of pearls" as as we seek to broaden our wardrobe in some charity shop to be transported back to a world of Ration Books and Anderson shelters. And there's the rub.Miller's music hasn't been "relevant" for half a century - the film was released during the birth of the rock 'n' roll age - and is unlikely to appeal to the i - pod generation,so the future audience for "The Glenn Miller Story" is uncertain. Apart from Mr J.Stewart's performance and the reproduction of the sound of the Miller band,the film is pretty dire stuff.Miss J.Allyson is too sweet and All - American to be true,the clichés come thick and fast and ,as everybody know what is going to happen in the end,it's pretty hard to maintain any tension. Mr H.Morgan has the best of the feature roles - here is a man who never gave less than a fine performance.He gives a lesson in how to quietly steal a film. Buddy Rich - in his youth a drummer with Miller's great rival Tommy Dorsey - spoke for many musicians when he said "Glenn Miller should have lived - his music should have died".