Streamlined Swing

Buster Keaton, at a low point in his career, directed this short subject about a new kind of swing band that plays musical instruments without actually playing them. It's a novelty act that never really caught on and it's easy to understand why.

No use discussing the plot. It's merely an excuse to show these "swing singers" doing their thing singing for their supper in a streamlined railroad "Dinah".

The black band is talented enough but the script is worthless, Keaton's direction is uninspired and the whole thing falls apart before "The End" is flashed on the screen.

Forget about it.

I just discovered this rare musical short from M-G-M on the TCM site. It's directed by comedian Buster Keaton at a low point in his life when the studio he worked for had no use for his physical talents. The stars are the musical group The Original Sing Band, a group of African-Americans who don't play instruments but instead use their mouths to sound like them while others sing the lyrics of which two of the performed songs were written by Louisiana native Leon Rene. Actually, one of them does play the guitar. The flimsy plot has them getting "sold" a railroad car by a "millionaire" who plans to retire on his "yacht". They take it off the tracks and turn it into a diner called "Dinah" (get the play on words?). While there's some embarrassing dialect here, this was mostly entertaining stuff courtesy of the singing. Since the Original Sing Band appeared in one other short, this was a real find for me. I highly recommend Streamlined Swing.

"Streamlined Swing" was directed by Buster Keaton at the lowest point in his career, when he was under contract to MGM but they refused to make proper use of his comedic talents. This film was a showcase vehicle for "The Original Sing Band", an unusual vaudeville act consisting of several young black men who play all the instruments in a band. The gimmick is that, except for one acoustic guitar, there aren't any real instruments in this band: the various bandsmen make unusual mouth noises (almost like scat-singing) to simulate the sounds of a clarinet, a saxophone, a trumpet with a wah-wah mute, and so forth. The mouth noises aren't meant to be funny; we're supposed to be impressed with the Sing Band's genuine ability to simulate the sounds of musical instruments.

Our lads in the band have got a snappy new diner but no customers, so they put on a band concert (with their nonexistent instruments) to attract a crowd, and of course there's a happy ending.

It's unfortunate that all the members of the Sing Band speak in "Yassuh" dialect, which was probably inflicted on them by some white booking agent who figured they'd be more popular with white audiences if they spoke like illiterate stereotype darkies. Also, the band's front man (the guitarist) is missing one of his front teeth, which really gives him a distressing appearance.

MGM were the richest Hollywood studio, but they obviously didn't spend much money or effort promoting the Original Sing Band. A shame, really. Buster Keaton directs this short film with proficiency but no energy. The whole film seems lackadaisical. "Streamlined Swing" deserves maybe one point out of 10, but I can't blame the men in the band for trying.

I believe there is a young Don Ameche in this short. There are other familiar faces and would love to see the cast line-up filled out a bit more on this. Fun music and reminds me of the set up for films like Holiday Inn and a White Christmas.

Streamlined Swing (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Buster Keaton directed this MGM short showcasing the original Sing Band. Keaton's direction is a tad bit dated and lazy as he doesn't really do much when filming the musical numbers, which just happen to be the best thing about the film. The story written around the musical numbers is also rather lazy and routine.

It's a shame MGM let Buster's acting career go down the drain but I guess we can be happy that he was working at all.

Turner Classic Movies shows this every once in a while.