Director:
Charles Reisner
Year: 1929
Rating: 6.0
Year: 1929
Rating: 6.0
With sound coming to the motion pictures the
studios rushed out loads of musicals. Obviously it was the one genre that
silent film wasn't able to do and there was an appetite by the movie going
public to see them, Music was a large part of American life in the theater,
vaudeville, nightclubs, concerts, radio and home life. Now it could be heard
at the movies. There were so many musicals produced in 1929 and 1930 that
they soon fell out of fashion and it was Busby Berkeley and 42nd Street that
brought them back.
This film is produced by MGM and they don't even bother to write a plot. They just bring on various acts to do their bit and leave the stage. They gave the audience their money's worth though as this runs at two hours and there were apparently other versions that ran even longer. A lot of it is filled with acts that mean nothing to us now - Charles King singing Your Mother and Mine was cringe-worthy and Ukulele Ike was ok but he does three songs I think. But IMDB lists 34 songs so that was still a small percentage of the show. A few highlights for me.
A young Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel emcee the show and Benny plays the violin.
Joan Crawford comes on for a song and then breaks into a flapper dance in which her legs seemed to have gone crazy. It is the most I have ever liked her. She was in a few musicals later on but wisely stuck to drama most of them time.
William Haines has a comedic bit with Benny. He was a big star at the time - often coming up as the #1 box office male. It wasn't to last long as he refused to politely step back into the closet after it became known that he had a male lover. He was ordered by the studio to give him up. He refused and he was out of the film business within a few years. But a happy ending. He and his partner set up an interior design company and became very successful.
I don't know anything about Bessie Love but she is adorable and I would be surprised if Goldie Hawn hadn't seen her before she did Laugh In. That same giggly out of control charming laugh.
Laurel and Hardy broke me up. But then they always do. They are magicians and of course everything goes wrong, Stan weeps, Oliver burns. Benny ends up with a face full of cake.
Marion Davies is most famous today for being the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate and the inspiration for Citizen Kane that he tried to get shut down. She comes out with a group of men dressed as British Royal Guardsman. She sings - badly - and does an ok soft shoe. But then each of these guys in turn picks her up and twirls her like a cartwheel. No wonder Hearst loved her.
A woman comes out of a giant shell in a harem outfit with a shell bra and immediately falls down the stairs, plays with a rubber snake, tries to sit on a man's lap and then does a bunch of cartwheels. It is the great Buster Keaton who had been sold to MGM and was now on the way down. Only a year previously he had made the brilliant Steamboat Bill and The Cameraman. His last two great films. MGM had no idea what to do with him. One of cinema's great tragedies.
Norma Shearer and John Gilbert do the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. Two actors going in different direction. Shearer was becoming the Queen of MGM and Gilbert who had been a huge romantic star in his silent films with Garbo never quite was able to transition to sound. Within a few years he was out of the film business and died in 1936. Shearer was to play Juliet again in the big 1936 MGM extravaganza. She was 34 at the time. Lionel Barrymore comes on as a director and tells the pair that they have to do the scene again but with up to date hip language that the studio wants.
We also get to see Marie Dressler sing two songs but I will forgive them. Lots of ensemble numbers with every chorus girl in Hollywood. Lon Chaney was supposed to sing Lon Chaney is Going to Get You - but he insisted that this be counted as one of the three films MGM signed him up for and pay him as a film. They refused. He was dead a year later. That will teach him. It ends with a lovely rendition of Singing in the Rain with much of the cast being rained on. I enjoyed this because I like these old actors. It is basically a stage show and the camera stays back most of the time. It might be an endurance test for many.
This film is produced by MGM and they don't even bother to write a plot. They just bring on various acts to do their bit and leave the stage. They gave the audience their money's worth though as this runs at two hours and there were apparently other versions that ran even longer. A lot of it is filled with acts that mean nothing to us now - Charles King singing Your Mother and Mine was cringe-worthy and Ukulele Ike was ok but he does three songs I think. But IMDB lists 34 songs so that was still a small percentage of the show. A few highlights for me.
A young Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel emcee the show and Benny plays the violin.
Joan Crawford comes on for a song and then breaks into a flapper dance in which her legs seemed to have gone crazy. It is the most I have ever liked her. She was in a few musicals later on but wisely stuck to drama most of them time.
William Haines has a comedic bit with Benny. He was a big star at the time - often coming up as the #1 box office male. It wasn't to last long as he refused to politely step back into the closet after it became known that he had a male lover. He was ordered by the studio to give him up. He refused and he was out of the film business within a few years. But a happy ending. He and his partner set up an interior design company and became very successful.
I don't know anything about Bessie Love but she is adorable and I would be surprised if Goldie Hawn hadn't seen her before she did Laugh In. That same giggly out of control charming laugh.
Laurel and Hardy broke me up. But then they always do. They are magicians and of course everything goes wrong, Stan weeps, Oliver burns. Benny ends up with a face full of cake.
Marion Davies is most famous today for being the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate and the inspiration for Citizen Kane that he tried to get shut down. She comes out with a group of men dressed as British Royal Guardsman. She sings - badly - and does an ok soft shoe. But then each of these guys in turn picks her up and twirls her like a cartwheel. No wonder Hearst loved her.
A woman comes out of a giant shell in a harem outfit with a shell bra and immediately falls down the stairs, plays with a rubber snake, tries to sit on a man's lap and then does a bunch of cartwheels. It is the great Buster Keaton who had been sold to MGM and was now on the way down. Only a year previously he had made the brilliant Steamboat Bill and The Cameraman. His last two great films. MGM had no idea what to do with him. One of cinema's great tragedies.
Norma Shearer and John Gilbert do the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. Two actors going in different direction. Shearer was becoming the Queen of MGM and Gilbert who had been a huge romantic star in his silent films with Garbo never quite was able to transition to sound. Within a few years he was out of the film business and died in 1936. Shearer was to play Juliet again in the big 1936 MGM extravaganza. She was 34 at the time. Lionel Barrymore comes on as a director and tells the pair that they have to do the scene again but with up to date hip language that the studio wants.
We also get to see Marie Dressler sing two songs but I will forgive them. Lots of ensemble numbers with every chorus girl in Hollywood. Lon Chaney was supposed to sing Lon Chaney is Going to Get You - but he insisted that this be counted as one of the three films MGM signed him up for and pay him as a film. They refused. He was dead a year later. That will teach him. It ends with a lovely rendition of Singing in the Rain with much of the cast being rained on. I enjoyed this because I like these old actors. It is basically a stage show and the camera stays back most of the time. It might be an endurance test for many.