Forty Boys and a Song

A Warner Bros. Short Subject.

The Robert Mitchell Choir School of Hollywood, California, provides a solid education for talented boys from ages 8 to 14, giving them the chance to perform and excel academically & musically.

Nominated for an Academy Award, FORTY BOYS AND A SONG is an informative & highly entertaining little film which spotlights a premiere American musical institution from years past. We watch the young fellows in the classroom, at play and at church. Always, music is being taught, performed & enjoyed and we get to hear the boys' renditions of "Home On The Range," "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" & "Shortenin' Bread."

Born October 12, 1912, Bob Mitchell showed an acute aptitude & appreciation of music at a very early age. In 1924, when still only 12, Bob started playing organ accompaniment to silent films, beginning a passion for silent cinema music that would last a lifetime. In the 1930's he started his Boys Choir, which gained much success; the Mitchell Singing Boys would appear in scores of films, most notably GOING MY WAY (1944) with Bing Crosby. On his 90th birthday in 2002, Bob Mitchell was still keeping very busy playing the organ for church and weddings, personal appearances and silent films - delighting new audiences with his gift of music.

Bob Mitchell died on July 4, 2009, in Los Angeles, at the age of 96.

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Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

Here's a short subject from the Warner Brothers 'Melody Masters' series about the Robert Mitchell Choir. We get to watch them sing scales, "Home on the Range", "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and other well known songs, straight and in swingtime.

Mitchell was an organist and choir master, who performed for the movies from the middle of the 1920s. He organized his boys choir in the 1930s, and they sang in an estimated hundred movies and numerous TV shows from 1936 through 1981. From the 1960s he returned to playing the organ, most notably at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles until shortly before his death in 2009 at the age of 96.

This isn't the most natural of films you'll ever see as it showcases the skills of young lads attending a school where their more academic lessons play second fiddle to their singing. Led by their young teacher Bob Mitchell, these youngsters deliver a few songs whilst extremely conscious of the camera that is filming them. Even the more jolly songs seem to go hand-in-hand with a sort of compulsory grin on each of their faces, and the hearty meal they are toasting at the end as they go a-scouting just looked like sausage on a stick to me. It's a feel good, naturally falsetto, film about camaraderie and the joys of harmonising, but you'll never remember it afterwards - unless you were one of the boys.

Forty Boys and a Song (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short takes a look at The Robert Mitchell Boys Choir school, which was a non-profit school that would teach boys not only their school work but also music. The documentary short talks about what goes on at the school in terms of what is being taught but for the majority of the running time we get the boys singing. "Home on the Range" is probably the highlight of the music, which is pretty much all there is. There's really no sense of direction or style as the film is pretty laid back and straight forward. These boys would eventually be seen in Bing Crosby's GOING MY WAY, which is where most will remember them.

The Robert Mitchell Boy Choir is given the spotlight during this short subject which shows him working with them on various songs. They later appeared in Bing Crosby's GOING MY WAY.

Mitchell is seated at the piano in a classroom setting where the boys attend regular classes during the morning but are then turned over to Mitchell for hours of practice while he rehearses them.

Reminds me of the many hours I spent with choirs as a youth and as an adult. Some of the songs covered: "If You Would Like To Lose Your Blues," "Home on the Range," "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and "Shortnin' Bread." A pleasant short subject showing America during a more innocent era.