The short but interesting movie star career of boy soprano Bobby Breen had its debut in Let's Sing Again. In this film young Breen set the pattern of his film career as the little curly haired kid with the big soprano voice, a kind of male Shirley Temple. Later on he branched out and became a kind of male Deanna Durbin.
Producer Sol Lesser discovered him and was so high on him that he formed his own production company which had RKO release his films. Hopefully Breen got to see some of the money he made in adulthood.
Bobby was also a regular on the Eddie Cantor Show on radio as Lesser brought Breen to Cantor and Cantor claimed discovery. It all worked out well for a few years for all concerned.
In Let's Sing Again Bobby is the son of singer George Houston and Ann Doran who separated in Naples and Doran returned to America. But she died and Bobby was placed in an orphanage. He runs away when a traveling carnival comes to town and is taken in by Henry Armetta who used to be an opera singer himself. Bobby has certainly inherited his father's voice as everyone discovers. The villain of the piece is trapeze star Grant Withers who arranges an 'adoption' so he can sponge off the young man's tonsils.
As would be the case in most of Breen's films, Bobby gets a nice array of songs, some opera, some popular, some Italian folk songs. Until he reached puberty Breen had a great career, after that he had a Peter Brady moment and it was never the same.
Let's Sing Again is still a nice family film and as good an introduction now as back in the mid Thirties to Bobby Breen and his brief career of film stardom.
