I'm giving this short subject a few points more than it deserves, because there are some faces in it that one rarely if ever saw or heard in early talkies. Among them are Broadway stars Otis Skinner (see OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY and KISMET), and Marilyn Miller, as well as young Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein II, Al Dubin, and such faces as Walter Huston, Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Pidgeon, Loretta Young, Sidney Blackmer, and Ona Munson. I can even add the Fred Kohler Sr. and Beryl Mercer. It's pleasant seeing faces of some importance or still vibrant memory there.
But having said that I look at the bulk of the celebrities. The chief spokesperson is a young girl, Betty Jane Graham, as "Little Miss Vitaphone". Vitaphone, of course, was the process that the Warners used to bring talkies to Hollywood. Ms Graham is polite and well spoken. She is a pretty child. That said, there has absolutely no spark of talent or panache in her. If you check the thread on her, she had a career into the 1940s, but increasingly it fell into not even supporting parts but extras. Finally she must have gotten the message and left films entirely.
I have heard of Evelyn Knapp (barely) and Louis Fazenda, but who on earth are Leon Janney (any relation to television star Alison Janney?), Claudia Dell, or James Rennie? The stars of tomorrow. Their credits barely suggest anything.
In the other comments on this thread, there are complaints that the brothers Warner failed to use such figures as George Arliss, Richard Barthelmess, or (my God, how could they?!) John Barrymore. Yes, indeed, they did. They also did not bring in their champion man of song Mr. Al Jolson. A song is sung at the end by some well intentioned crooner with a forgettable name, who looks like he's got a great future in half-empty concert halls. He is warbling a slightly passable ditty with words by Mr. Dubin. As I listened to him sing this, and saw Ms Miller was in that room, I wanted to cry. The tune is not a standard, but with a bit of friendly or sexy push it might have been. Or if Mr. Jolson had been around it might have been.
I take it this was done as publicity (to show off some of the big and so-called promising names) for the studio. As such they may have grabbed whoever was available (due to shooting schedules) on that day or two it was shot. So, as a museum piece it is curious enough to merit a "7" out of generosity to Otis and Marilyn in particular. But otherwise I felt like a lot of good film stock was wasted in this work.
