Starring Vivian and Rosetta Duncan, Laurence Gray, and Jed Prouty
Directed by Sam Wood
Music by Dave Dryer; Lyrics by Ballard MacDonald
We're going backstage this week at the dawn of the early sound era. After the wild success of The Broadway Melody, MGM pretty much used that as a template for all of its theater-set musicals from 1929 through 1932. Vivian and Rosetta Duncan were the inspirations and original casting choices for the sister act in Broadway Melody. Their close-harmony comedy act had been captivating audiences in vaudeville, the stage, and on silent film since 1911. MGM figured it made sense to star the sisters in their own Broadway Melody variant about a small-time sister act who breaks up when one gets married. How does it look now, over 90 years later? Let's begin at a department store, where the head manager (George Periolat) is getting ready to lead the clerks in song, and find out...
The Story: Diminutive Casey Hogan (Rosetta Duncan) and her slightly ditsy younger sister Babe (Vivian Duncan) get into trouble when Casey does comedy when she's just supposed to be dancing in the store's annual talent show. That doesn't put her over with Jimmy Dean (Gray), the piano player in the sheet music department who is in love with Babe and is directing the show. Jimmy tries an act with Babe, but it doesn't really work until Casey joins in, too. That puts it over better...until Babe and Jimmy claim they want to get married. Casey is devastated, and they break up the act. Casey is ready to marry David Parker (Prouty), the department store manager who has been in love with her for years...until Jimmy tells her that her sister has collapsed. She's delirious...and will respond to no one but her sister.
The Song and Dance: The first half of this one, when they're at the department store and doing vaudeville together, is actually kind of fun. Vivian's bland and a bit annoying, but Rosetta can be a riot, especially playing off the combative Gray. The movie is surprisingly fast-paced for the era. Wood gives a real sense of bustle to the early scenes, especially at the botched talent show and when the trio are on their vaudeville tour. It's rare for a film of this vintage to still have its color scenes. Apparently, those were rediscovered in the 90's. That fashion show in particular doesn't look too bad today.
The Numbers: We open with the store song, "Smile, Smile, Smile," during a meeting. Casey finds it to be more than a little maudlin and goofs off and makes wisecracks throughout the entire number. Our first Technicolor sequence is "Fashion Through the Day," the fashion show sequence that goes awry when the girls get in the wrong order and come down when the singer isn't talking about their costumes. The movie returns to black and white for a rather dreadful tenor murdering "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella." He sounds whiny and can't even remember the lyrics. Babe attempts a solo, "The Sweetheart's Song," but she has an attack of stage fright, and Casey saves the number by turning it into a comedy. Casey and Babe do better by their simple, sweet close harmony number, "I'm Following You."
The Hogans reprise this in their vaudeville act, climbing out of Jimmy's piano. This is actually rather charming, showing us what vaudeville acts like the Duncans meant to their audiences. The two of them dressing in goofy Spanish costumes and singing "It's an Old Spanish Custom" and "If I Love You"as an exaggerated Victorian lass and gentleman is a little stranger. The movie ends with Babe's Technicolor fever dream...and considering the wild Art Deco sets, it's almost literally one. The Hogans start out by singing "Hoosier Hop" with bad back-up dancers in gingham bonnets. They end things by having the chorus girls slide down silvery "sunbeams" in "Sailing On Sunbeams."
What I Don't Like: Yeah, I can see why this was such a flop, the Duncans never made another feature-length film. It starts out pretty cute, but the bottom drops out pretty quickly once Jimmy and Babe get married. The melodrama is dull, silly, and annoying. Some of Casey and Jimmy's bickering gets obnoxious to the point of being plain nasty. No wonder Babe got so sick. Jed Prouty is supposed to be Casey's love interest, but he's such a nonentity, you understand why Casey ran back to her sister. (Oh, and Warner, the color on the copy currently at YouTube could stand for some restoration, particularly in "Sailing On Sunbeams.")
The Big Finale: Only for the most ardent fans of the Duncans, vaudeville, or the early talkie era. Everyone else would be better off looking for the Technicolor numbers solo online.
Home Media: It's on DVD from the Warner Archives, but like most 1929 titles now in the public domain, you're better off streaming this one.
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