The Vitaphone shorts were originally intended to be experimental and tested out the new Warner Brothers sound system before they ultimately released "The Jazz Singer". Following the release of the film, they continued to make Vitaphone films...even after sound became the norm. So, it's very fitting that Vitaphone also tested out a new innovation in their shorts as well--Three Color Technicolor. While there were earlier color systems (such as Cinecolor and Two Color Technicolor), they weren't true color but were made with a more primitive system where a blue-green and an orange-red strip overlapped the black and white strip. The colors, not surprisingly, tended to look very orange and green! With three strip, three different color strips overlapped the black & white strip...and resulted in vivid color. The only problems were that the films needed A LOT of lighting to make the picture look good and not too dark. And, the colors in the earlier versions of this system tended to look very over-saturated--with colors so intense it almost looked better than real life!
Technically "Changing of the Guard" is a good film. The acting and singing and costumes are all very nice. So why did I hate this short so much? Well, a lot of it is due to Hollywood's infatuation with colonialism in the 1930s and 40s. Again and again, films like "Gunga Din", "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" and "Wee Willie Winkie" espoused the notion that imperialism is mega-cool and questioning the morality of it in any way was ridiculous. The locals were simply stupid and sub- human and needed subjugation!! And in this one, the Boer War was simply to subjugate the naughty Boers (the Dutch settlers in South Africa). Never mind the many atrocities the British committed...and none of this is show in the short. It's all rah, rah, rah for the wonderful Brits. Yuck. But what also bothered me was the super-adorable Sybil Jason (ironically, born in South Africa). Because Miss Jason is dead, I don't feel so bad saying that the child she often portrayed on the screen was TOO perfect, TOO cute...almost to the point where you wondered if some mad scientist created her and she was secretly the embodiment of all that is evil!! I find her cutesy routine and amazingly adult screen presence ultra-creepy...much, much more than the more believable sort of characters played by Shirley Temple...not that she was all that human either! Too perfect...too talented...too strange. Overall, I didn't like the film BUT still give it a 4 for technical prowess. It is certainly a lovely looking picture.