Glenn Miller on Film: "Sun Valley Serenade" & "Orchestra Wives"

1941 was a landmark year for American popular music, a time when the big band craze was probably at its dizziest height. On March 24, Glenn Miller and his crew arrived in Hollywood to start work on their first film. There may have seemed to be little significance in that - big bands had appeared on the silver screen ever since the advent of talkies in 1927, usually presenting a featured number or two but mostly as support for cabaret and theatre acts, or providing music for dance-hall scenes. Making their screen debut in "Sun Valley Serenade", Miller insisted that he and the band were to be an integral part of the story-line, not just used to provide incidental music. Glenn had become a star as a result of his one-night stands around the USA, and the band was hugely popular throughout the country via their regular broadcasts, so now this fame was to be acknowledged by star treatment on the big screen. With music to be as important as the stars, the studios assigned their top writing team of Harry Warren and Mack Gordon to provide the Miller aggregation with some suitable numbers. They excelled themselves, as they had done many times before, with a score that gave Miller three hit songs.