Hoagy Carmichael (1939)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Of all the shorts in Kino's Hollywood Rhythm Vol. 1, this here might be the weakest but calling it weak would be over-dramatic as this is still a fairly entertaining film. Hoagy Carmichael, Jack Teagarden and Meredith Blake perform Two Sleepy People, That's Right-I'm Wrong, Lazy Bones, Small Fry, Washboard Blues and their most famous song Stardust. At just under 10-minutes there's not any time wasted on story but instead we're just given one musical number after the next. There's no question that the main reason you would want to check this out is for the music as all the performers do a terrific job with Washboard Blues and Two Sleepy People really standing out. The instrumental songs feature brief scenes of showing black people working, which are mildly entertaining but they really don't add too much to the film. I don't mind there not being any story as many studios wrote really lame wrap-around to their music numbers but what keeps this film from being more entertaining is its rather lackluster direction. There's really not any style to anything being shown and it's clear the filmmakers were just interested in capturing the music and not trying to add anything else.