Rory O'More leaves his sweetheart Kathleen O'Connor back in the old country while he travels to America to establish himself. He is a musician, and hopes to make it big. Kathleen grows tired of waiting and travels to America, only to find him on stage performing "their" song and kissing another woman. Kathleen returns to Ireland, followed by Rory, who explains everything. In the end they wed and return to America.
Smiling Irish Eyes was Colleen Moore's first musical role, and only her first sound film. Produced by her husband at the time, John McCormick (1893-1961), the film featured Moore as Kathleen O'Connor, an Irish woman who follows her musician sweetheart Rory O'More (James Hall) to New York City.[3][4]
This film is similar to an earlier film Moore made for Samuel Goldwyn, Come On Over (1922), directed by Rupert Hughes. As in Smiling Irish Eyes, Colleen played an Irish girl whose betrothed crosses the ocean to start a new life in America before sending for her. In both films, the boyfriends do not send for her right away, in both she travels to America only to find the boyfriend seemingly besotted by another girl. In both, cases this is a misunderstanding. In Come On Over, Colleen's character reluctantly remains in America where she learns that her boyfriend is actually helping the father of the "other woman" quit drinking. In Smiling Irish Eyes, Colleen's character returns to Ireland, followed by the boyfriend, who convinces her back in Ireland that it was a misunderstanding. They marry and return to America.
Following this film, Moore made another film directed by Seiter, Footlights and Fools (1929). This latter film also had Technicolor sequences, and is now considered a lost film, although the Vitaphone discs survive.
^Rockett, Kevin; Luke Gibbons; John Hill (1987). John Hill (ed.). Cinema and Ireland. Taylor & Francis. p. 53. ISBN978-0-7099-4216-0. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
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