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Reviews
Ladies Should Listen (1934)
Nice old fluff of a movie, not bad for an early short
Watching Cary Grant in any movies usually means you can expect it to be enjoyable. This movie although short is fine as a funny type of movie from that era. The director of this movie is obviously following the Lubitcsh formula for comedy although not as good as Lubitcsh. You have to give the director credit however in making this short movie interesting. There was obviously budget constraints, but looking at the core supporting players, they actually do an excellent job. George Barbier plays a familiar role of a father who demands his wife is to be married. This is also the role he played however as king in "The Smiling Lieutenant" and he has that role down. What's amazing is the performance of Nydia Westman as Susie Flamberg. She plays and has dialog which is much like Claudette Colbert's role as the daughter seeking the love interest.
In the case of The Smiling Lieutenant, Maurice Chevalier is the love interest the daughter seeks, but in this case it's Cary Grant. When watching an old copy of this movie I actually thought for a moment based on the dialog that Nydia Westman was Caudette Colbert and had to do a double take at the credits.
These are probably formula roles for comedy by this time in the 30s, kind of a formula for haphazard comedy. Never the less, it's fun to watch and not bad. Wish I had a better sounding audio on the copy I saw. I wonder if there are even any good masters of this film available that could meet Turner's quality requirements for release. I give it a solid 7 perhaps it would rate a little better if there had been better audio.
Everybody Sing (1938)
Happy Go lucky Funny film
This is actually a very good film. I gotta wonder what others are complaining about. Okay there is some dated humor. Some pre WWII Russian humor which is prevalent in some 30's films before cold war cast them as the enemies. What's great about this movie, Judy Garland is in her typical personal problem solving mode. Trying to help her own family in distress. Of course playing the part of a young girl she may be making a little more of the problem that what's happening. But apparently the performing family hasn't been putting out real work. So they are in need of a financial rescue.
What is great about this movie. Well the script isn't very tight, because at times a song just happens because people are happy. Nothing wrong with that for die hard musical lovers. What makes this film great. Well look at Judy's father, he's such an overblown ham and takes himself too seriously. All the "important" actors in the family who are supposed to be great (in their own eyes) are just hams. And they are in need of rescue. Whereas the "regular" folks who are supposed to be the underclass, Judy and the help are the ones to break into the big time to save the family. It's really great, everyone plays there part really well and if you get to watch these players play other parts, for example watch "THE GOOD FAIRY" before watching this and check out the same actor who plays Judy's father, plays a butler in that movie. It's really a great film.
Now later films were a little more tight with their plots and the music may have fit the action more. A little less, "Broadway melody" style of musical. In the 30s movies often did musical themes because they tied into "getting on the stage", etc. A simple plot that was in many early musicals, even Fred Astaire movies. So this is a common theme and one in early musicals.
I could watch this again and again, and I have. For those of you lucky enough to have a Laserdisc copy, this like many other 30s musicals is a treat to watch on laser disk.
I'm giving it an 8, but in some ways it's almost a 10 for the repeatable enjoyment factor.
Born to Dance (1936)
Just a few spoilers - excellent Broadway Melody 1936 and 1/2
This musical, there's a lot that is said about it in other comments above, is probably one of the best musicals before the 40's ever made. Why? Well yes there is campy humor and there isn't the dual star power of Elenor Powell and Fred. Or Fred Astaire and Ginger. But what makes this film so great is well you have to look at Broadway Melody movies 1929, 1936, 1938, 1940 and Ziegfield Girl 1942, to compare them. What you'll find is a typical Broadway Melody theme. The Broadway Melody theme is the lead actress is trying to get a dancing part on Broadway. Pure and simple, and every campy joke and fun action revolves around to some extent that theme. Elenor Powell takes on this same role in this movie as most of the others, she's a girl from a small town trying to hit it big by getting a dancing job in Broadway.
Some of the humor is dated in all these movies, but that's to be expected. There's a couple of pauses or long scenes that could have been left out and almost fill in as filler, being comic relief, and these are in all the Ruth Del Ray's pictures.
What makes this musical so great is it doesn't rely on the main two or four characters in the movie. Each sub-plot is plausible, humorous and although not slapstick, is something that is unexpected. Each scene when viewed for the first time, comes from out of nowhere seemingly, yet if fits perfectly into the plot or sub-plot. Each character, furthermore and I'm talking about the supporting cast are PERFECTLY cast. It's more than humor, it's high humor that could be used as a form of tongue in the cheek commentary on the craziness of the world. For example the Captain of the ship is incompetent in a lovable way, so much like all the authority figures we often see in government or even the service, but this character - Captain Dingby, is more lovable almost like a cartoon character. He's played perfectly by the actor. Then there's the sailor getting married and leaving home and all the repercussions of that, yet played out in a humorous way. Actually the beginning and end of the movie plays into one big joke that's about Gunny Saks. Perfectly bookending the movie. There's actually so much to say, but I've watched this movie more times than I'd care to admit. The child listening in on mom's conversation and humor, involved in that, even pig Latin. Priceless, it's almost a commentary and a time capsule of American life, really I'd have to say it's working on so many levels.
Okay what are the weaknesses. Well the policeman leading the pretend symphony, probably a long parody of a conductor at the time, but it plays to long, especially for modern audiences. Then there's the "looking at the honeymoon cottage tour" it's a little on the long side, but it gives some back-story to the things a young couple of that time might do spending time. Those are the down parts. The rest is really well done. Some of the tunes and accompaniment seem a little childish and dated, like the "pipe sounds" when Elenor is dancing her first time. But the timing and buildup of the music and even the timing and crosscutting between the scenes, is PERFECT. And I mean perfect, it's not like it's suspended and if you thought to try to figure out how long the "other couple" in the scene would take to get to their position, it would take exactly the amount of time to the next cut to the next couple. Almost perfect editing. There's one almost jump cut like cut in the Lonely hearts club, from a close up of Elenor and Jimmy to a medium shot a little off the same angle. Not bad.
Almost every scene, even if it adds a little humor, helps define a character and drives the action forward. Perfect construction, as perfect as a Hitchcock movie, but his is humor. Also the scenes are unexpected enough to be somewhat shocking in humor, in that you don't know or cannot guess what will happen next, yet it all holds together. The only other movie that I've seen that does this BUT to an EXTREME as well is "Something about Mary". But Something about Mary of course is all shock humor and the humor in Something about Mary is funny because of the shock and over the top nature. When you watch Something About Mary a second time, it's not funny or nearly as funny as the first time, because half the fun of it was the shock and not knowing what would happen. This is not true with Born to Dance.
Born to Dance is as funny the second time you watch it as it was the first time. This I think is because the humor is true comedy, and a higher form of comedy. Yes it's still fluff, but it's also a commentary about how people really are. The comedy, although light is as true today as it would be in 1936.
So with near perfect construction, a multitude of plots, pretty good songs as others have pointed out. And even scoring buildup that structures the songs in almost three parts, in a classical sense, this is just a GREAT MUSICAL.
I think a lot of later musicals took a lot from the Broadway Melody movies, but you'd have to watch them to see this.
Highly recommended. And fortunately I have the LaserDisk version. Will buy the DVD if it ever comes out.
Greg
Swing, Swing, Swing (1938)
Pretty interesting selection of shorts
My review may be somewhat revised when I view everything in this collection. So far I've seen pretty much the first three disks. Yes, I'm referring to the laser-disc collection which is rare and expensive. I picked up my collection from ebay. The laser-disc collection comes with 9 sides on 5 disks. There is fairly good notes regarding the collection, which I'm assuming is included in the VHS set as well. The first disc, two sides are my favorite so far. The first disk starts out with jazz/blues Lester Young, which is a strong start to the selection. The second disc sides 3 and 4 have more big band stuff, but these bands are from the 20s, 30s and 40s. This is some fairly obscure stuff compared to what you might think a swing compilation would be. I'm not knocking it, just that the rarity are both a blessing and a curse. If your expecting the biggest and freshest production of all the great hits and most popular bands, well I haven't found that here, but what I have viewed was still interesting and it definitely fills a niche a collector may not have seen. Some of the numbers also have interesting surely now not politically correct statements in them. There's some slang from earlier periods mentioned that would be considered offensive and a history of racist speech that was par for the course back then. Some of the obscure acts are so odd, it makes them kind of interesting. Some of the acts are just performances designed for a camera, like a filming of a club concert at a dance. Others have some short story around the performance, mostly like an intro to an act in a hall or something along that line. It's almost like your looking at a precursor to music videos, except they are aimed at the movie going public as short movies in the old days.
I found a group the "Mo City Blowers" on disk 1, near the end of the first side. Their performance was on a "stage" show of a different band. What made this band so interesting to me and I was shocked to see them, was that I researched on the net to try to find if I could see any JAZZ usage of a kazoo. I consider myself one of the best kazoo players in the world, which is an odd thought. I still realize the instrument is so obnoxious that it's almost like claiming you can play an odd car door buzzer. In my search for kazoo players I found out about these Mound City Blues Blowers" on the net and auditioned some of their pieces which include kazoo playing. The other pieces I've heard on the net were not the simple song they performed in this quick one song they performed in this short. There are other kind of strange skits maybe good at the time and interesting, but of course they are old acts and more of an oddity than anything for the modern viewer.
So here on this collection of vitaphone shorts and other short musical pieces, the Mound City Blues Blowers appear. These guys were from the 30s and definitely in that style of the time. They are playing a variety of odd instruments, but the most interesting one is a bull horn. You've seen the bullhorns that singers yelled through in making some early music of the 20s and 30s. Winchester Cathedral would be the most famous example of this type of singing through a bull horn style. So here on this tape is the Mound City Blues Blowers and one of them is making a sound through a bullhorn, but it's not singing. Looking closely and listening you can see that he's actually "singing" in the kazoo sense making a noise through a diaphragm on the back of the bull horn. The player has actually modified the bullhorn with a diaphragm (maybe wax paper?) to create a huge kazoo. I was astounded to actually see this. The kazoo has a big drawback and that is the nature of the instrument producing distortion and not always vibrating in tune with the note at first, so a buzzing sound is introduced into every note to some extent and it's hard to quickly sound a lot of notes in succession. Now I'm getting off into discussion of playing a kazoo, but my point is there's some really bizarre and strange stuff on this. Some of the music is so dated your bound to be bored by it, but it's inter-spaced with odd, and interesting things as well. I give it 7 stars, if your a big fan of the times or some bands you might give it a higher rating. The sound quality is awesome on the laser-discs considering the source. You can't get better sound from most early musicals of that time. They did a really good job putting this out.
I also found some of the swing stuff most moving that had clarinet leads. Disk 3 sides 5 and 6 are based on a radio show like presentation with different artists. It's the weakest of the first three disks so far. I haven't seen disks 4 and 5 yet. Enjoyed sides 1, 2, 3 and 4 the most so far. 5 and 6 to a lesser extent and didn't even watch all of it.
I may write another review if that's possible later when I've seen the entire collection.
Spring Parade (1940)
This is a good movie but transfer needed a better source
I purchased a VHS copy from Movies Unlimited that was in new condition. The tape however had some flaws, possibly related to the source material. It looked like there was a few seconds missing between a couple of reel changes and a dropout possibly due to missing material or a bad master. It's difficult to tell. The footage/sound was also distorted at times for some of the songs, which could be due to my tracking on my VCR. I had to set the tracking manually to get the best picture and my VCR won't go to auto track once a manual setting is set. My parents have a cheaper VCR and played the tape with auto tracking. The tape had a bit of fuzz near the bottom of it but the audio may have been a little better with worse video. The transfer was produced by some small company with "Hollywood" in their name. It was better than not having access to the title. Of course I wished for better footage.
As far as the theme and subject of the movie, this movie is almost in the same vein as the original Good Fairy, in that the actress in both films is playing a country girl with little experience going to the big city. This in a sense is a type of variation in the Good Fairy theme with different typical Deanna Durbin musical twists. If your a fan of Deanna Durbin films you'll find this has all the typical things that happen in one of her musicals. When there's a problem, she'll usually end up singing her way out of them. In this case there are a few minor plot differences and twists that aren't in a typical Deana film, yet enough of the same types of things that a fan will feel at home in watching this movie. This movie might rate as one of the top 5 or 6 of her films. And I give it a high rating, SK "skuddles" is in a typical role as well. I think other criticisms of this film are to harse. I think this is a fine light Deanna Durbin film with enough quality to make it rate highly in a film you should watch if your a fan of her movies. The only problem is the transfer and copy that's available. I own a nonlinear editing system and wonder about the chance of finding a 16mm copy of this and maybe actually making an attempt at a transfer and edit into the other copy giving me a better master for my own home use. I almost feel like going after this as a personal restoration project, but I'm afraid there isn't decent source material to be found and think that the one out there is probably/unfortunately the best source available.
These kinds of things happen. Of course you have to rate this within a mindset of when it was produced and the type of movie it is. This is from a different era and to a large extent based on themes in Deanna's other copy of "The Good Fairy" movie theme, mixed in with a little bit of "the shop around the corner". It's a good theme mix. In some ways it's almost a perfect composite of other Deanna and other classic films, because it has so much other little things put in. Having so many little things in it, makes the film appear and actually looser in it's script, it's not as tight a script, but it can't be because it's more of a mix of other film themes all thrown in together. But even with it's loose plot it fits together pretty well.
I've put in my opinion without putting in enough to create a spoiler. I think it's worth watching and owning. If it came out from a good copy of 35mm inter-positive, wow I'd be really happy. I don't know if I can find better audio from her "audio" CD recordings that might be edited into a working dub, but I'm tempted to look.
Why do I watch these films. Well I put them together for my mom mostly. She likes light musicals with good singing and many of Deana Durbin films fit that bill very well. This film rates up there just below her best films in my opinion. There are 21 of her films out there. Many can only be had if you buy the PAL UK version of the DVD collection and do your own conversion to NTSC using a DVD player that can play Europeon PAL and trans-code it back to the USA standard. Some of the PAL titles have distorted sound as well, probably because the loss of decent film source copies of the movies. Truly a tragedy. Thank God for folks like Keno who try to restore and offer rare films before they are completely gone.
Also one more correction. Deanna Durbin films being Black and White are not "rare", all of her films were "black and white" except one. This is due to her high popularity and the studio had to cut corners to afford to have her in the film, so they cut by not shooting in color for all of her films, except one.
If your looking for an awesome older musical with charm, check out some of her movies. Totally family friendly with some great film moments in many of them.