The Trocadero was apparently a popular celebrity nightclub in the 1930s, and the way it is depicted in this MGM short, it seemed to be worth its weight in gold. Plenty of celebrities abound in "Sunday Night at the Trocadero", where there are two subplots going on: A pair of talent scouts show up to sign on any bright new talent to their liking, and actor Reginald Denny receives a camera as a present, which he wastes no time using to photograph all his celebrity friends.
Here are some of my favorite moments from this entertaining short. A bellboy who does impersonations is consistently frustrated because the two talent scouts always guess incorrectly who he is imitating; perhaps the boy's funniest reaction occurs when one of the scouts guesses the Marx Brothers. Connee Boswell sings a nice jazzy rendition of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" with organ accompaniment. A trio of girls known as the Brian Sisters are too frightened of their audience to sing, but Connee, who had once experienced this same kind of stage fright, politely encourages them to go ahead with their number, and they do quite well, singing a catchy little swing tune. A bartender shakes a cocktail in time to a rhumba beat. Celebrities Frank McHugh and Benny Rubin (the latter of whom I have seen in a handful of Three Stooges shorts from the 1950s) clown around for Reginald Denny's camera.
"Sunday Night at the Trocadero" can be found as a bonus item for the DVD of the Marx Brothers feature film "A Night at the Opera" (1935). As such, this short suffers from an unbalanced soundtrack that quite often makes the dialogue hard to decipher. On a positive note, in addition to the celebrities mentioned above, here are a few more who I recognize from other movies: Groucho Marx (minus his traditional comic makeup), Frank Morgan, Robert Benchley, and John Howard.
Here are some of my favorite moments from this entertaining short. A bellboy who does impersonations is consistently frustrated because the two talent scouts always guess incorrectly who he is imitating; perhaps the boy's funniest reaction occurs when one of the scouts guesses the Marx Brothers. Connee Boswell sings a nice jazzy rendition of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" with organ accompaniment. A trio of girls known as the Brian Sisters are too frightened of their audience to sing, but Connee, who had once experienced this same kind of stage fright, politely encourages them to go ahead with their number, and they do quite well, singing a catchy little swing tune. A bartender shakes a cocktail in time to a rhumba beat. Celebrities Frank McHugh and Benny Rubin (the latter of whom I have seen in a handful of Three Stooges shorts from the 1950s) clown around for Reginald Denny's camera.
"Sunday Night at the Trocadero" can be found as a bonus item for the DVD of the Marx Brothers feature film "A Night at the Opera" (1935). As such, this short suffers from an unbalanced soundtrack that quite often makes the dialogue hard to decipher. On a positive note, in addition to the celebrities mentioned above, here are a few more who I recognize from other movies: Groucho Marx (minus his traditional comic makeup), Frank Morgan, Robert Benchley, and John Howard.