The Vagabond Lover

On Long Island, crooner Rudy Vallee and His Connecticut Yankees are mistaken for a more famous band, by neighboring socialite Marie Dressler (as Mrs. Whitehall). The ruse, which started innocently, goes too far, and threatens Mr. Vallee's budding relationship with Ms. Dressler's niece, Sally Blane (as Jean Whitehall). It all works out while Vallee sings several songs, including "I'm Just a Vagabond Lover" and "A Little Kiss Each Morning (A Little Kiss Each Night)".

"The Vagabond Lover" does not capture the Vallee hysteria, unfortunately. It is his first feature length film. The songs are stylistically representative, but dull; "Honey" had already appeared in a "short", and the film was completed too early for "The Stein Song" to be included. Ms. Blane (Loretta Young's sister) is very pretty; but, the most beautiful woman in the film is most definitely Dressler. It is her first feature length sound film. Later, Vallee would become a surprisingly effective (considering this performance) character actor.

**** The Vagabond Lover (1929) Marshall Neilan ~ Rudy Vallee, Sally Blane, Marie Dressler

The Vagabond Lover is a historic film as it was the first to showcase a current popular radio star as its lead. In 1929 Rudy Vallee was the number radio crooner in the country and as such brought a built in audience to the theaters. That he hadn't quite got down the technique of acting period, let alone film acting was incidental for this film with its very slight plot.

Rudy and his band The Connecticut Yankees play a second tier orchestra looking for a break. Rudy persuades them to break into the home of a noted leader and idol and audition even after he was rebuffed. When they're caught by the local constable Charles Sellon, they pretend the famous orchestra leader and his group and have to continue the deception right up to playing in a charity event organized by society grande dame Marie Dressler and her daughter Sally Blane. Of course it all works out in the end.

The film didn't launch Vallee as a movie idol, his his ascetic personality just didn't work for a leading man. This film was done for RKO and later Warner Brothers tried twice to make a leading man of him with Sweet Music and Golddiggers in Paris and failed.

The songs were taken from what Vallee had made popular on his radio program and they included such hits as A Little Kiss Each Morning and the title song. This was probably wise because I'm sure the producers knew this man was not an actor, yet. It would take Preston Sturges who cast Vallee in several of his films to make use of his unique personality and style in great series of character roles. After that curiously enough Vallee rarely sang in films, but still continued as a radio performer. By this time it was the Forties and people like Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dick Haymes were crowding Vallee and earlier singers for public attention including Vallee's chief rival Bing Crosby.

If you like Rudy Vallee's singing as I do, by all means catch The Vagabond Lover, but realize you will not see the Rudy Vallee you might remember from later work.

The Vagabond Lover was an early all-talkie film (1929) that starred the current singing rage, Rudy Vallee. He plays the leader of a small-town band determined to make the big time. The band travels to Long Island to crash the home of noted band leader, Ted Grant. Of course, snoopy society matron (Marie Dressler) mistakes them for the all-star band and invites them to play at her musicale. In her rivalry with fellow matron (Nella Walker), Dressler will not stop at anything to "one up" her. The band plays well, and Vallee instantly falls for Dressler's niece, Sally Blane. OK plot, but the main setback is Vallee: he's a lousy actor, his singing seems thin, and he has a strong lisp. But Dressler makes up for it, stealing the film from the novice actor. By today's standards, she overacts, but she's so funny and lively, it's hard to find fault. Blane is pretty but no great actress. Malcolm Waite plays the real Ted Grant, Charles Sellon is the local cop, Edward Nugent and Danny O'Shea are band members, and Gladden James, once a silent-screen star (The Social Secretary with Norma Talmadge in 1916) plays one of the reporters.

The title song is sung over the opening credits. "I'm Nobody's Sweetheart Now," "I Love You, Believe Me, I Love You," "Georgie Porgie," "If You Were the Only Girl in the World, and I Were the Only Boy," "A Little Kiss Each Morning, A Little Kiss Each Night," "Sweetheart, We Need Each Other," and "I'll Be Reminded of You" are the songs. A couple are well remembered. "Sweetheart, We Need Each Other" was also a featured song in 1929's smash hit, Rio Rita, sung by Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee (and in a better rendition).

This is Dressler's talkie debut in a feature. The same year, she starred with Polly Moran in a talkie short, Dangerous Females and appeared in the all-star Hollywood Revue of 1929. After having been a star on early films (Tillie's Punctured Romance, etc.) Dressler was on the comeback trail in 1928 (The Patsy with Marion Davies). Talkies cemented her return to stardom, and Dressler would be a top box office star within a year. Everything she appeared in was a hit (Anna Christie, Let Us Be Gay, etc.) and she resumed top billing in star roles, winning an Oscar for Min and Bill.

Blane would have a so-so career, eclipsed by her sister, Loretta Young. Vallee would re-surface in the 40s in comedies like The Palm Beach Story and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. Handsome Edward Nugent would linger for another decade but never made much of a splash. And Nella Walker would have a long career playing society ladies.

This film is certainly worth watching but is a disappointment. Vallee does NOT use his famed megaphone (it might have helped), nor does he sing his hit version on "The Stein Song" (from the University of Maine). Vallee attended both the University of Maine and Yale.

This film is for those who are interested in early talkies, and early talkie musicals in particular. If you are not in that group, then skip this film.

The plot has Rudy Bronson (Valee) and his band going to Long Island to attempt to audition for Ted Grant, who has loaned his name to a musical correspondence course that Bronson took and according to a newspaper clipping is looking for new talent. Promptly thrown out by the butler, the band members decide to break into Grant's home through the garden entrance, set up their instruments, and play for Grant anyway. However, Grant has already left to go back to New York. A series of misunderstandings has Bronson mistaken for the famous Grant by a neighbor, Mrs. Ethel Bertha Whitehall (Marie Dressler). A series of musical performances and comic misunderstandings later, and Mrs. Whitehall's niece has fallen for Bronson, with everyone still thinking he is Ted Grant. However will he get out of this dilemma?

The musical performances are quite good and include several big hits of that time including the title song which Valee also performs in "Glorifying the American Girl" which also came out in 1929. There is also a dancing performance by a group of chorus girls that involves some interesting formations that are photographed from a top view several years before Busby Berkeley made this sort of thing an art form. Rudy Valee and the other players leave much to be desired in the acting department, leaving plenty of room for Marie Dressler to steal the show as the comic society matron.

After about a year on my Netflix wait list when this was previously listed as "long wait", I finally got this in the mail. Among the extras was a PSA about pollution with children (don't ask), Ch. 1 of a Zorro serial, and a talking piece with Rudy Vallee's widow. When clicking on the movie proper, it was introed by a Michael Young, a representative of a film school. The picture itself was a pretty good print for the most part. Knowing this was an early talkie, I found much of the dialogue to seem stilted as performed but when the Marie Dressler character was making faces near the end, I was highly amused by that part. Vallee himself wasn't much of an actor, at least not here, but his singing was quite smoothly compelling, even in today's terms though of course, his kind of music is not in vogue right now. Sally Blane, Loretta Young's sister, is quite a luminous presence, if nothing else. Overall, I liked The Vagabond Lover especially since it happened to be quite brief (65 minutes) compared to some of today's short features when the least running time would maybe just be 90 minutes.