The Hollywood Revue of 1929

MGM was one of the last studios to convert from silent to sound movies. To break the ice for the stars' talkie transformation, studio executives felt if they dipped their collective toes on a sound stage these silent movie actors and actresses wouldn't be so scared to hear their recorded voices for the first time. The June 1929 "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" proved to be a grab bag of MGM performers mixing song-and-dance routines with comedic acts. The movie served as a predecessor to television variety shows such as 'Ed Sullivan Show,' while at the same time harkened back to those earlier vaudeville days.

The 'moving camera' of the later silent movie era was all but discarded for a stationary one anchored just behind the orchestra pit in the audience seats. Additional cameras captured close-up and two shots. But the majority of scenes took in all the stage action in one wide frame. The two-hour length of "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" served as an entire evening's entertainment to those not used to seeing huge Broadway musicals. Despite being contained on one stage, the movie still cost over $400,000 to produce, and was filmed over a 25-day period.

The revue, billed as an "All-Star Musical Extravaganza," was well received by the curious public. Stars not known for their singing and dancing, such as Marion Davies and Bessie Love, were given quick lessons in both to showcase their limited musical talents. Joan Crawford, a previous dancer, said "the revue "was one of those let's-throw-everyone-on-the-lot-into-a musical thing, but I did a good song-and-dance number." The feature film had so many fans flocking to those theaters wired for sound to hear their silent film stars vocalize on film for the first time that MGM earned an enormous $1 million profit. "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" was nominated Outstanding Picture, the only revue movie ever to be considered for the Academy Awards Best Picture.

The many acts were tied together by emcees Conrad Nagel and Jack Benny, appearing in his first film. As a vaudeville and stand-up comedian beginning in 1911, Benjamin Kubelsky (stage name Jack Benny), along with his trusty violin, bounced around the country for years. His agent, Sammy Lyons, approached MGM's Irving Thalberg, and asked the producer to give Benny a look-see at the local Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Thalberg liked Benny so much he sign him to a contract, beginning with "The Hollywood Revue of 1929." Not only was Benny a co-anchor to the show, he came up with the special effects introducing actress Bessie Love by taking a miniature version of her out of his pocket and placing her on the stage. She quickly grows larger like the Wonder Bread commercial boy. To achieve such an effect, the actress was in front of a black velvet curtain while the camera moves in.

The movie is also noteworthy for the performance of actor John Gilbert, who plays Romeo in a tongue-in-cheek sketch with Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer. Claims of Gilbert possessing a high, shrill voice aren't found in the color clip where his deliberate pacing isn't as bad as film historians claim it was in his later films. Additionally, one of the highlighted comedic acts was delivered by the Laurel and Hardy team, who had just released the pair's first talkie a few weeks earlier in "Unaccustomed As We Are."

In another skit where the song "Lon Chaney Will Get You if You Don't Watch Out," viewers are introduced to the Chaney character played up by actor Gus Edwards. Chaney inked a three-picture a year deal with MGM. The actor wanted "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" to count as one of those films, even though his appearance would be only five minutes of reel time. The studio balked at the expense of paying Chaney for the short performance, which would eat up a good portion of the film's planned budget. It flatly refused. The actor wasn't happy to find out the song about him was going forward. But the untimely death of Chaney a few months later forced MGM to cut the song while in theaters that summer. The studio did put the sequence back into the motion picture when re-released years later.

Director Charles Reisner got MGM to film the last-minute inclusion of the grand finale with the song 'Singin' in the Rain.' The sequence was shot 10 days before the movie's premier at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The Technicolor ending included those stars who appeared in the previous acts to report to the studio stage to film late into night. Movie critics in the day appreciated the final coda with the New York Times praising "the most extravagant and extensive musical comedy so far presented by the talking pictures, and is in itself a complete evening's entertainment."

Finally got around to seeing this on its recent outing on TCM, and despite the drawbacks - yes, it is slow-paced, yes, it is dated - there is a certain charm to it that makes it very enjoyable. I particularly liked the novelty acts and comedy stuff - Bessie Love, Marie Dressler, Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton's Egyptian lady. And the Gilbert/Shearer Romeo and Juliet section is worth sitting through the rest for anyway (despite its washed out colour, which oddly looked better in the little snippet showed in When The Lion Roars). I can't say I was disappointed with any of it - you get mind-boggling acrobats, you get weedy voiced Marion Davies, you get Jack Benny playing his violin and Conrad Nagel singing pretty well, and Charles King singing that hideous song about mothers, and Ukelele Ike, well, playing a ukelele, and Joan Crawford's ungainly dancing ... it's just a real treat, and nice to see from a technical pov that the sound isn't bad at all and despite its advanced age it is still watchable. A respectable 7 out of 10 I think.

I love this film. I've commented before but just saw it again and have a few more "insights." It seems I like it better with each viewing. Along with The Broadway Melody and 42nd Street, one of the great early musicals--films that set the style and standard for decades to come. Yes there is debate as to the singing and dancing of Joan Crawford and Marion Davies, but there are great moments from Marie Dressler, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Buster Keaton, John Gilbert (I'm Utsnay about Ouyay), Norma Shearer, Cliff Edwards, the swell Brox Sisters, Conrad Nagel, Charles King, Polly Moran, Bessie Love, William Haines, Anita Page, the snappy June Purcell, Lionel Barrymore, Gus Edwards, a sly Jack Benny, and a slap-happy Ann Dvorak. Who could resist.

Oddities for a talkie include silent bits by Keaton and Laurel (Hardy does all the talking, and some schtick from Karl Dane and George K. Arthur (neither destined for talkie success) during a Benny violin solo. To carry forth the "revue" concept the film is introduced over a live orchestra pit and the intermission sees the musicians taking their seats to reprise the early tunes--Crawford's "Gotta Feelin' for You" chief among them. As noted in other comments, some acts are introed; some are not.

Considering all were singing live (no lip syncing here) the musical numbers are not bad at all. The recording (still primitive) hurts a little. Charles King comes off best as a straight singer, and the great Cliff Edwards (as Ukelele Ike) is a treat as the comic singer. Edwards does a straight intro to Singin' in the Rain as well as his signature falsetto scat. Joan Crawford, who sang in a bunch of early talkies, has a decent if unpolished voice, and her dancing was par for the course for 1929: lively but a little clunky. Remember, movie musicals were new and hadn't really developed a cinematic choreography. Marion Davies' number is the weakest in the film, which is too bad because she was a delightful performer, but singing and dancing weren't her high points. Marie Dressler cannot hit a false note. No matter how badly she mugs and hams it up, she is great. This film also shows hints of what Bessie Love might have done during the 30s with better handling by MGM. And ditto Polly Moran, who was diminished to playing Dressler's foil in a series of early comedies.

The Jack Benny we remember from his 1950s TV show is exactly the same 25 year earlier. All his mannerisms are in place as is his superb timing. Several parts of the film are very badly edited and sometimes hurt the timing or punchlines of comic bits. William Haines, nearly choking on a licorice button he rips from Benny's jacket, is handsome and gracious in a cameo.And Conrad Nagel reveals a not-bad singing voice as he serenades a ravishing Anita Page.

The Singin' in the Rain number rates highest. From the art deco set of Cedric Gibbons to the terrific singing of Cliff Edwards and the Brox Sisters, this number is a true classic. The dancing is simple but effective, the rain effects are OK as is the reflecting "pool." The reprise by the Brox Sisters (all 3 wrapped in 1 raincoat) is wonderful--as is the comic reprise by Dressler, Love, and Moran. Note the arm motions made by the Brox Sisters; they are same as used by Jean Hagen in the 1952 Singin in the Rain.

I love this film.

This film will not get a good reception from most modern audiences, and certainly much of the film shows its seventy plus years, but this is a delight for some of us who see the '20s as a golden age, and this movie as a small window into it. It is also a humble reminder that in seventy-five years or so, what we consider entertainment will hold little or no interest to mass audiences.

If you are familiar at all with who the people are (Jack Benny, Joan Crawford, Cliff Edwards, Buster Keaton, etc.), the film is worth seeing. All of these people were one of a kind, not to be replicated by big name performers of today (great stars in their own right, but sorry, folks, they just don't have the class!). Just to see Joan Crawford as a young and beautiful woman is worth watching the film!

Technically, of course, the movie is what it says it is--a revue--intended to show audiences that their favorite silent stars can function in the new medium of sound. That purpose fulfilled (more or less), the film now might seem to have no point. The passage of time and the loss of context have made some of the humor corny (a term, by the way, from that period). The editing is clumsy (we have learned from their mistakes), but the personages themselves, and some of the song and dance, are better than anything we have today, and could not be duplicated.

I'd rather watch this than anything on the screen now.

I watched the tape I had made on 4/18/02 again today and read over some of the comments that have been made on this old curio and I felt the need to add a few more observations of my own.

- Firstly, I enjoy watching old films. I see them not as competitors with current entertainment but as portholes into the past. I see the past as a series of presents and the present as living history that we are privileged to witness. Old films allow us to `look' at past era, such as 1929, up close. Each era contains its classics, such as this same year's `All Quiet on the Western Front', that are so good that they are timeless. But most of what was created was material such as Hollywood Review of 1929, designed to provide entertainment for the masses, to the tastes of the age. These people were not making this film to entertain us but rather to entertain the audiences of 1929. They must have done a good job, as this was a big hit. There is plenty of material being produced today that will look just as silly to future generations. Some of it looks pretty silly right now.

- Keep in mind that while the cinema was three decades old at this time, sound recording was an infant. Not only do we hear the `clump…clump…clump of the dancer's feet but the limitations imposed on the camera by the new technology had stripped a generation of innovations from the medium and what we have is a very flat rendering of a stage review. In time, Hollywood would rediscover how to make films- essentially they filmed much of them in silence and added what sounds they wished us to hear afterwards. We could hear the tap of Fred Astaire's shoes but the clump of the dancer's feet would be muted. The songs would be dubbed in under controlled conditions in a studio. The same presentation would have been done a lot better just a few years later. But this is the best that could be done in 1929.

- In the wake of the development of sound, Hollywood rushed out movies that exploited the new technology as fast as they could, (this one was put together in 28 days), just as a lot of films today use computer generated monsters, armies, cliffs, etc., just to show off what they can do. We have to remember what a miracle watching movies stars talk must have seemed like at the time. Whenever a technical process becomes a drawing card in itself, other aspects of the movies are going to suffer- just as today we see many movies designed simply to show off computer technology that neglect to create human characters we can relate to or tell a coherent plot. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather see `Hollywood Revue of 1929' again than to see `Van Helsing' again. I wonder what the cast of the first would have thought of the second. They might have liked their product a little better.

- It was decided that the best way to exploit the new medium was to produce musicals. Talking was fine but people wanted to hear music, as well. And singing and dancing filled the bill. But the people who had become silent movie stars were not necessarily talented musical performers. Joan Crawford was a chorus girl but that's a long way from being a lead singer or dancer. Imagine modern Hollywood putting on a show like this- with Tom Cruise playing comic foil to some Saturday Night Live types and Julia Roberts dancing and singing. Would it come out any better?

It's best not to be too critical and just look through the crystal ball of the TV at the year nineteen hundred and twenty nine, up close and personal.