On With the Show!

Warner Bros, 1929
Starring William Bakewell, Sally O'Neal, Joe E. Brown, and Betty Compson
Directed by Alan Crosland
Music by Harry Akst; Lyrics by Grant Clarke

Flush with the success of The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool, Warners threw themselves into making sound films and full-on musicals by mid-1929. Their first actual musical would be an adaptation of The Desert Song. This was their first original musical, and was originally the first sound movie to be all-color. With the color now lost, how does the rest of the movie look today? Let's start backstage at the very 20's stage show The Phantom Sweetheart and find out...

The Story: There's a lot more drama going on backstage at Phantom Sweetheart than there is melodrama onstage. The cast hasn't been payed in two weeks. Head usher Jimmy (Bakewell) and his partner and usherette Kitty (O'Neil) are hoping to get onstage and play Broadway someday. All the juvenile lead (Arthur Lake) does is whine for more money, and he's constantly arguing with the comedian (Brown). Someone robs the box office, and then the leading lady Nita (Compson) refuses to finish the show. Kitty may have to step up and take the stage, even as the crew tries to figure out who stole the box office takings.

The Song and Dance: Onstage or off, this is a genuinely interesting glimpse into what making a real stage musical was like in the late 1920's. Crosland, who also directed The Jazz Singer, gives us a real feeling of backstage bustle and keeps things moving relatively well for a movie of this era. I like that the authenticity extends to the show itself, which has an actual plot of its own, rather than just being a jumble of random numbers like in most backstage films. Other stand-outs include Compson as contrary Nita and Wheeler Oakman as Bob Wallace, the detective who keeps jumping on the wrong suspects.

Favorite Number: Compson, as the Phantom Sweetheart, performs the sweet ballad "Let Me Have My Dreams" to lure the young man (Lake) from his fiancee (Josephine Hudson). O'Neil reprises it towards the end, when the Sweetheart finally appears in the flesh. "Lift Your Julieps to Your Two Lips" is an adorable chorus routine that has everyone dancing with the famous southern cocktail in hand. The Four Covens show off some amazing tap dancing here and in "Welcome Home," and Brown gets some amazingly limber acrobatic dancing.

Ethel Waters steals the movie wholesale with her performance of the standard "Am I Blue?" Dressed as a cotton-picker, she pours her all into the number, aided by the Harmony Four Quartette. (And the movie knows how good she is - Kitty all but shouts it to the heavens right before the number starts.) Waters comes back towards the end of the movie in far more modern dress to belt the sassy "Birmingham Bertha" and have a wonderful time doing so.

Trivia: This was the first full-sound film made entirely in color. Though the color prints were lost decades ago, 20 seconds of color was found in 2005, and a few more fragments apparently turned up in 2014.

What I Don't Like: For once, the problem with a musical isn't too little plot, but too much! There's enough plot here for three shows. It's hard to keep track of everything going on, and some characters, like Louise Fazenda's comedienne, get lost in the shuffle. As peppy as O'Neal is, she's too cutesy and her voice too Betty Boop-ish to make us believe she could be a star by taking over a role in the last 20 minutes of a failing Broadway-bound show. Bakewell is bland, Lake is annoying, and Brown doesn't do much besides his acrobatic numbers and trading quips with the latter.

I really wish they'd been able to bring in Ethel Waters for longer than two numbers. She does so well with her songs, I wonder what would have happened if they'd been allowed to use more of her and the tap-dancing marvels the Four Covens.

The Big Finale: An interesting curio if you love the era, are a fan of Waters, or want to know more about film or musical history.

Home Media: The black-and-white print is currently DVD-only via the Warner Archives.

DVD