Wouldn't it be nice to be able to peep through the (heavy) curtains of Time and physically drop into any previous year to properly sample the air, the people, the entertainment, the booze - or the lack of it. I'm afraid that's what we need to be able to do to fully understand this now, because watching often blurry incomprehensible 2D images through gauze requires some patience.
It's 1929, Warner Brothers wanted to produce a revue talking picture starring most of its contracted players, a collection of comedy items, singing and dancing numbers linked by Frank Fay, who for the most part was rather Fey. The hodge-podge he introduced ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, however all worthy of watching now to us archaeologists – when his turn eventually came to sing he was unsurprisingly cringeworthy too. There's almost endless impenetrable comic patter to get through but many good songs lie within, and for the most part with excellent orchestrations from Louis Silvers conducting the always sharp Vitaphone Orchestra. Winnie Lightner, fresh from Goldiggers Of Broadway belted out Ping Pongo and Singing In The Bathtub and these are definitely the highlights – she was allowed to be a highlight, sadly everyone else is shadowy and now of the shadows. The Technicolor section for Li-Po-Li sung by Nick Lucas and danced to by the not so inscrutable Myrna Loy was lost, found, restored – it's completely charming for the supposedly Oriental set as well as for the idiotic song lyrics. The big finale goes on for too long, but as with everything else in here is absolutely fascinating, even in the surviving black & white prints. John Barrymore played Richard III from a scene from Shakespeare's Henry VI, apparently this was well received in 1929
The film itself was not so well received in 1929 in that it only recovered less than twice its cost – it was expected to do better. It has me glued to the TV every time I put it on, but do you enjoy time travel as much as I do?
It's 1929, Warner Brothers wanted to produce a revue talking picture starring most of its contracted players, a collection of comedy items, singing and dancing numbers linked by Frank Fay, who for the most part was rather Fey. The hodge-podge he introduced ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, however all worthy of watching now to us archaeologists – when his turn eventually came to sing he was unsurprisingly cringeworthy too. There's almost endless impenetrable comic patter to get through but many good songs lie within, and for the most part with excellent orchestrations from Louis Silvers conducting the always sharp Vitaphone Orchestra. Winnie Lightner, fresh from Goldiggers Of Broadway belted out Ping Pongo and Singing In The Bathtub and these are definitely the highlights – she was allowed to be a highlight, sadly everyone else is shadowy and now of the shadows. The Technicolor section for Li-Po-Li sung by Nick Lucas and danced to by the not so inscrutable Myrna Loy was lost, found, restored – it's completely charming for the supposedly Oriental set as well as for the idiotic song lyrics. The big finale goes on for too long, but as with everything else in here is absolutely fascinating, even in the surviving black & white prints. John Barrymore played Richard III from a scene from Shakespeare's Henry VI, apparently this was well received in 1929
The film itself was not so well received in 1929 in that it only recovered less than twice its cost – it was expected to do better. It has me glued to the TV every time I put it on, but do you enjoy time travel as much as I do?