Director: John Murray Anderson
Year:  1930
Rating: 7.5

---

The restored version of this film from Criterion is so pristine and sharp with colors so gorgeous that it will take your breath away. This for a 1930 film shot in two-color Technicolor. There is no story here - just a musical revue led by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra with many songs and a few comedy skits. Produced by Universal, they initially tried to write up a real script but after many bad ideas they just said screw it - just do music. The songs are very hit and miss for a modern audience - some so old fashioned I expected my grandfather to climb out of his grave and sing along - but some are knockouts - big productions that hint at what is to come with Busby Berkeley just ahead.


One of the most colorfully eye-popping numbers is a rendition of Rhapsody in Blue. Whiteman had commissioned George Gershwin to compose this back in 1924. Another standout is a song called Happy Feet that begins with the vocal group The Rhythm Boys, then jumps to two surrealistic female talking heads, then to a dancer who looks to be a human rubber band to a finale with a line-up of female dancers tap dancing. You may recognize one of the singing Rhythm Boys in his first film appearance - Bing Crosby - before he went solo and went big. At the time of the film he was actually in jail for drunk driving doing a 40-day sentence but being let out in the day to work on the film.


But most of these performers are long forgotten, even Paul Whiteman to a large degree. But there was no band leader more popular back in the early 20's to the mid-30's than Whiteman. He was making over a million dollars a year. His orchestra played all sorts of songs but he was given the moniker The King of Jazz which may seem more than a bit ironic today considering his name - white man - and his being in fact very white. He comes across as a cherubic chubby man-child with the smallest moustache in the world. But he was a brilliant orchestrator and band leader. But still, The King of Jazz in a musical genre that was clearly created by blacks with many great performers back then. But that was the power of being white in being able to appropriate black music and call it your own. But that is being unfair to Whiteman. He tried to bring on black musicians, used black composers and arrangers and helped many young black musicians. But he was basically told that he could not use black musicians and perform publicly. And so this film is as white as a Christmas Day in New England. And none other than the Duke said Whiteman deserved that nickname more than anyone else.