She was such a talent and I remember her at the Academy Awards when I was a kid in the 70's - she had wonderful stage presence! How could anyone forget her!
Every now and then in a film one hears a mention of Powells being from Arkansas, his diction is so good no southern sound. How was this possible? I read somewhere that Ava Gardner had to take diction lessons to get rid of her thick aouthern accent.
Thank you for this! The sound quality is superb! And the visuals compliment the record very nicely. Looks like there are some montages by Slavko Vorkapich in there. By the way, since you are "2reeler," I would guess that you are a Laurel & Hardy enthusiast as am I.
The audio quality is really amazing here. Also the actors are great, very nuanced and quite skilled. But back to the audio, they used an optical sound technology that had superior fidelity and would exactly synchronize with the film sequencing. Because there's no physical contact between the sound waves as captured on the film and the photosensitive reader, the resulting electrical sound signal is very clean and clear, as you can hear in this film. No hiss, rumble, rotation error or dirt noise. Much better than a phonograph although the frequency response was limited to a 50-8000Hz range, that's still pretty good and likely could have been improved. So it's interesting why sound didn't naturally head in that direction. The likely culprit probably had to do with corporate battles for market dominance.
This is the reissue trailer since Art Cinema reissued this film in the late 1930s. The original trailer would have said "A United Artists Picture" and probably have the words "Joseph M. Schenck presents" and would have mentioned Irving Berlin. The 1930 version contained at least two songs while the reissue (the print currently circulating) has only has one remaining. The original trailer would most likely not have mentioned Bing Crosby at all since he was virtually unknown in 1930. Bebe Daniels would been billed second as she reportedly sang the title song in the 1930 version, a big song hit that year and the following.
Great to see Bobbie Grice in male drag leading her all girl band known as the "Parisian Redheads" in this lively rendition. There is another short by this same band using a different name. The puzzlement is the original title on that Vitaphone short calls them "Green"s Twentieth Century Faydettes". But it is clearly the "Parisian Redheads," as seen here. There must be a story there. In any case, it's a talented all girl dance band from Indianapolis! Another all girl band had a similar name out in Hollywood, called the Hollywood Redheads" that was lead by Babe Egan, a jazzy violinist virtuoso with a .movie theater background of playing for the Paramount silents. She insisted Grice drop the "Redheads' name in the summer of 1928. Grice renamed this sensational band "The BrickTop's". They were a hit on the vaudeville circuit till they disbanded in 1933.
Funny when Jack Benny holds onto her hands. He always did the same thing on his TV show whenever he had a young performer such as Ann Margaret or Darla Hood appear. It's creepy here when he was in his late thirties but a lot creepier when he was in his late sixties or early seventies! He looked like he was slobbering over them so much he needed a bib to keep his shirt dry from all the drooling... lol
Jesus Christ, this is a crime against humanity. having chick webbs orchestra in it just makes it worse. Look how pissed off they are when he's doing that idotic dance at the end
