Sad to say that this two reel comedy required Bing Crosby to go into blackface, otherwise this could be the best of the work he did with Mack Sennett. Bing's a singing plumber in this one, looking forward to marrying Ann Christy, but her mother Kathrin Clare Ward has a show business career in mind for her daughter that doesn't include being hitched to a plumber. Personally I think you could do a whole lot worse than a plumber, even the plumber isn't Bing Crosby.
As Bing comes up to pop the question, ring in hand, the maid tells him that mom has taken her to Hollywood to appear in movies. That doesn't deter Bing in the slightest who chases off to California after Ann.
Getting on the movie set in disguise requires the blackface and in this Arab setting film where Ann's being romanced by desert sheik Eddie Phillips is where all the fun begins. If it wasn't before the film turns into a two reel comedy to the chagrin of director Vernon Kent.
Bing sings three songs in Dream House. When I Take My Sugar To Tea is done while he's racing to Christy's house to pop the question. Crosby finally got around to recording that song for his New Tricks album in 1957 with the Buddy Cole Trio in a jazz arrangement. During the Hollywood sequence Bing sings a song he had already recorded back when he was just going solo as a vocalist with Gus Arnheim's Cocoanut Grove Orchestra, It Must Be True. It's another gem from his classic early years. And the title song Dream House was never put on record by Bing and of course he sings it at the fadeout.
There's a lot of physical comedy in Dream House, Bing got quite a workout here. He wasn't a superstar yet, so I'm betting he had to do a lot of it himself.
