The Sunday Round-Up

The most interesting thing about this Vitaphone short is its casting Jane Wyman several years before she became a star. Not quite as interesting, but still interesting, is casting Glenn Strange (who later played Frankenstein's monster for several films). It is also unusual because it's in vivid Technicolor...the three-color system which produced realistic though very vivid color. Previous popular systems used a two-color system--which created and orangy-red and greenish- blue tint to everything. Some colors on the older system were more approximated than exact...so the new Technicolor system was a huge improvement and Warner tried it out mostly in Vitaphone shorts before widely using it in full-length pictures.

This story is set in the old west and the town's minister (Dick Foran) isn't pleased with everyone in the bar singing and having a gay old time instead of going to church. He doesn't want the bar closed...just on Sundays for church services. Well, the bar owner isn't about to do this and tosses the minister out on his butt when he confronts them for this. So how can the minister battle such apathy? Well, when he meets some out of work actors, he has the idea of putting on a variety show. Huh? See the film to find out more about this odd plan.

More than other Vitaphone flicks I've seen, this one looks more like a shortened movie than a short--with nicer sets and production values than normal. But, like most Vitaphone shorts, it has it's share of song and dance numbers. But it also has a knife, pickax and ax thrower, some blotto actors who do some AMAZING acrobatics as well as an act starring the minister himself.