Story Conference

To say this short is fun is an understatement. Story Conference, in addition to being a vehicle for Broadway star Lillian Roth, treats us to a comic rendition of the ins and outs of getting a Vitaphone short off the ground -- all on short notice. Besides being a knowing and wry send-up of how Hollywood operates, Story Conference offers up a series of progressively lively numbers -- featuring the requisite pretty girls and buoyant dancing -- that culminates in one of the most truly inspired production numbers you're likely ever to see. With snappy songs by Warners ace songwriter Cliff Hess, Story Conference is not only of interest to Lillian Roth fans, but is itself another terrific entry in a long line of excellent musical/comedies from Vitaphone.

This Warner Brothers short subject features Lillian Roth the woman whose autobiography I'll Cry Tomorrow provided Susan Hayward with one of her great roles. But that was two decades into the future.

Roth had already been in Hollywood and Paramount put her in such feature films as Animal Crackers, The Vagabond King, and Madame Satan. She was at pretty much the end of her film career when Story Conference came out.

The framework for the many numbers in this short was a conference among studio writers and their ideas for the next Lillian Roth picture. The number s are cute but mostly forgettable. One however entitled Alimony Sal was pretty good and might have been better known if it were in one of Warner Brothers feature film musicals.

This is a good chance to see the real Lillian Roth.

"Story Conference" is a Vitaphone short from Warner Brothers which features the singer/actress Lillian Roth. Often the studio used these shorts to gauge the public's reaction to a particular stage star and the film is very strange, as instead of a coherent story, it consists of lots of little non-connected vignettes.

When the story begins, studio execs and writers are called for a big meeting to decide what to do with their big new star, Ms. Roth. So the group then brainstorms various story ideas and then you see Roth perform in clips using these proposed plots. One involves the Alimony Hotel where Roth works in the laundry room....where there is lots of singing and dancing. In another, you see her with scarecrows...where there is lots of singing and dancing. In yet another, she is in a jewelry store where the guy at the counter looks like Lenin....where there is lots of singing and dancing. And finally, there's a Busby Berkeley style production number...which, of course, means more singing and dancing. It seems less like a story and more like clips from various Roth films which were never actually made. Pleasant and forgettable.

It's an assortment of songs and production numbers with Lilian Roth, backed by the Vitaphone chorus line. It's given some structure by casting it as a movie story conference, looking for a vehicle for Miss Roth, and some pep by a Busby-Berkeley shot in the finale.

Raised by a couple of stage parents, Miss Roth was on Broadway by age six; when she was 17, she was a headliner for Ziegfeld, with some early, good roles in movie musicals. Her personal life was far more chaotic, and she went through six marriages and a lot of liquor before she published her memoirs and they were made into a movie. She re-established stage credits, but her roles in movies were more in the nature of cameos. She died in 1980 at age 69.

The tinny sound recording used in the '30s doesn't flatter anyone's singing voice but for all I can tell, Miss Roth had a pleasant, clear singing voice coupled with a dimpled smile and a strong personality.

However, given the insufferably routine and scatterbrained material presented here, it wouldn't be fair to judge her talent by this Vitaphone short which is deficient in every department.

The dancing is shaky, the choreography is almost non-existent (where was Busby Berkely?), and the storyline is a poor excuse for a featured short that puts the spotlight on Lillian Roth for the purpose of building her as a star in films after some stage success.

Summing up: Only interesting as a time capsule as what passed for musical entertainment in early Hollywood films about show biz.