School for Swing

Mentone produced about eighty musical shorts for Universal Pictures in the mid and late 1930s, usually directed by Milton Schwartzwald -- he later worked directly for Universal, in its musical department. Most of them were basically variety shorts with a twist and enough of a plot to distinguish them from other producer's musical shorts. Others might produce revues with a theme; Mentone offered a bit of a story.

In this one, the story is that this is a school that instructs its pupils in the principles of swing music, and has grabbed Bert Gordon, playing his "Mad Russian" routine (which I remember him doing thirty years later in an episode of the "Dick Van Dyke Show"), who is a European producer interested in swing. This is an excuse for Sylvia Froos to sing a couple of songs and some very nice tap acts. It's a lot of fun.