Starring Bert Wheeler, Robert Woosley, Dorothy Lee, and June Clyde
Directed by Paul Sloane
Music by Harry Ruby; Lyrics by Bert Kalmar
This week, we're letting RKO take us on vacation in two of their earliest summertime hits, starting with this wacky action comedy. The western operetta Rio Rita was RKO's biggest hit of 1929, and stage comics Robert Woosley and Bert Wheeler were a big part of that success. RKO rushed them and Dorothy Lee into another Broadway adaptation, this one of Kalmar and Ruby's biggest hit The Ramblers. How well does this action comedy come off nowadays? Let's head for a Mexican resort as phony fortune tellers Professor Bird (Woosley) and Sparrow (Wheeler) set up shop and find out...
The Story: Bird immediately ingrates himself with the wealthiest woman at the resort, Fanny Furst (Jobyna Howland). Fanny wants to marry her niece Ruth (June Clyde) off to a smooth-talking nobleman, the Baron (Ivan Lebedeff), but Ruth is in love with pilot Billy Shannon (Hugh Trevor). Gypsies have also wandered onto the resort grounds. Anita (Lee), an American girl living with them, falls for Sparrow. Trouble is, Julius, the head of the Gypsies (Mitchell Lewis) wants Anita. The Baron convinces Julius to help him kidnap both women, sending the Professor, Sparrow, and Billy after them.
The Song and Dance: This one is all about the comedy, a surprising amount of action for the era, and three nifty color sequences. The two-strip Technicolor is among the best examples surviving from this era, especially in the supremely weird "Dancing the Devil Away." Howland makes a wonderful foil for Wheeler and Woosley's antics, especially the latter attempting to flirt with her. Wheeler and Dorothy Lee are pretty adorable, too.
Favorite Number: Bird and Sparrow recall their college days to two lovely ladies with a soft shoe to "Oh, How We Love Our Alma Mater." June Clyde, at least, is enjoying her duet with Hugh Wheeler to the ballad "All Alone Monday." They also get the lovely "Wherever You Are," which starts with the two of them by the balcony and ends with Ruth being hoisted in the air by the chorus, who keep taking her away. Bird claims "I'm a Gypsy," but the real ones know better. Bird and Sparrow tell everyone "Goodbye" when they take off to rescue Ruth in the first color sequence. Lee and Wheeler introduce movie audiences to the standard "I Love You So Much" while eating an entire bowl of apples in a tree.
The big one here - in every sense of the word - is "Dancing the Devil Away." Anita dreams herself and the Gypsy Queen (Margarita Padula) into a wild tribal dance with skimpy and colorful costumes against a brilliant red and pink backdrop. It gets so insane, Lee can barely keep up with the wild, gyrating movements from the dancers. It really must be seen to be believed.
Trivia: The Ramblers ran for almost a year at the Lyric Theatre in New York in 1926, featuring comics Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough. While the film does retain most of the songs and added a few, it also changed the setting from a California movie studio to a Mexican resort town (though apparently it did keep the gypsies).
What I Don't Like: This is about as typical of an early talkie as you can get. Apparently, Sloane had no idea what he was doing, and it looks it. There's a ton of long, arid shots of people talking; the dance numbers are shot from so far away, you can barely see anyone. Trevor looks like he'd rather be anywhere but doing an action comedy musical and is dull as dishwater next to the adorable Clyde. Wheeler and Woosely's wiseguy schtick can be an acquired taste at best. If you're not into them and their brand of comedy, you won't like this.
There's also the plot being ridiculous even by the standards of musicals from this era. Gypsies in a Mexican resort? Yeah, this is the kind of thing they could only have gotten away with in the 20's.
The Big Finale: Bright, goofy fun if you're a fan of Wheeler and Woosley or the comedies and comedians of the early talkie era.
Home Media: Currently on the second Wheeler & Woosley Warner Archives set.
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