The Mild West

TCM recently ran this lightly entertaining short. It starts off as a Western and ends up as a just off-Broadway musical. The link is advanced plastic surgery, of all things. Not to be taken seriously, of course, but fun can be had in the right mood.

Janet Reade and Olive Borden trade quips as saloon girls, while the patrons snipe at the piano player, and everyone sings a song or six in this Vitaphone short. The women fight over Paul Keast, a fight that continues over thirty years and roves from the old west to a modern Broadway leg show in a beauty parlor.

A paper-thin and nonsensical plot connects the two eras, and if you don't take any of it seriously, you should enjoy this short, as well as the decent, if totally unremarkable songs, old and new, that are showcased in this one. Miss Reade is an attractive blonde here, with the brassy voice that stage performers cultivated during Musical theater's heyday.

Like so many of the Vitaphone shorts, this one features a stage performer famous in her day but today pretty much unknown. This one stars Janet Reade in a short western...more like a movie than a traditional Vitaphone short.

This begins in a wild west saloon. Lulu (who looks very 1930s despite most of the rest looking old west) sings a number. Then, she learns that Gentleman Joe has broken the bank! With nothing else with which to bet, Lulu bets herself...and if he wins, she'll marry him. Then, Joe begins singing about the future as a montage passes to indicate the passage of time. Now it's the present day (1930s) and Lulu and Joe are older...but oddly, Lulu's old rival looks the same as she used to. And soon, the rival runs off with Joe. So, to catch him back, she heads to a beauty salon which claims it can take decades off her! What's next? Does she lose all those years and does she win back that rat, Joe?

This is a mildly enjoyable short--certainly not among the best of Vitaphone but still enjoyable and worth your time if you love these sort of old fashioned short films...and the music is very, very old fashioned.

Mild West, The (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Typical Musical/Western from Vitaphone has some decent music numbers with your typical wild, wild west story. The film focuses on a saloon singer (Janet Reade) who marries a gambler (Paul Keast) and then must fight off a seducer (Olive Borden). I think the amount of entertainment you take from this thing will depend not on the actual film itself but your own tolerance of these early "everything must go" musicals. I say everything must go because it seems when talkies came into play, everything could be turned into a musical. Reade never really hit it off in the movies but I had heard her name before actually ever getting to see her. She alone made this film worth watching as she certainly had the looks but she also had a pretty good voice, which gets put to good use in several numbers including "Broadway Bubble", which was my favorite. Keast was mildly entertaining but I think a stronger male could have added more to the film. The rest of the numbers are average at best and the same could be said for the cast. There's also a running gag of piano players getting killed, which includes a scene where one of them kills himself. That's certainly not something you'd see very often back in 1933 so this too sets the film apart in that manor. Again, if you're a fan of these types of musicals then I'm sure you'll be entertained by this one. Others might want to stay with the more better known titles.

This short film holds up well even some eighty four (84) years after its first release in 1933, Considering the entire (western) film genre was still in its infancy and the main form of transportation in the world was still by horse and the whiskey was harsh and the beer was warm, this film was cool and the music groovy.

Heck who doesn't wish they could go back in time and visit a real western town, have a few luke warm beers and a whiskey chaser in the local saloon and listen to the original Lulu (Janet Reade) sing her bar room jingles, Yippy Yay Kay!!!!

I give this short western themed film a praiseworthy 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.