Happy Days

Fox's all-star musical revue is short on star power, but there are a few terrific numbers here.

The plot revolves around a bunch of Broadway stars who get coerced into trying to save a show boat by doing a benefit show. Of course the sets make little sense as they could hardly fit on a show boat stage, but the minstrel theme (similar to the opening of MGM's all-star revue, THE Hollywood REVUE OF 1929) is used to introduce the various acts.

Among the better known stars here are Fox's #1 romantic team of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, who sing "We'll Build a Little World of Our Own." Gaynor would remain a big star throughout the 30s, but Farrell struggled with his voice and had only a so-so career in talkies.

Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe sing a novelty song called "Vic and Eddie." Ann Pennington does a terrific dance to "Snake Hips," which is sung by Sharon Lynn. The dynamic Marjorie White and Richard Keene sing "I'm on a Diet of Love." Frank Richardson sings "Mona." Whispering Jack Smith sings the title song of "Happy Days." Other stars who appear include George Jessel (but he doesn't sing), Walter Catlett, William Collier, El Brendel, Frank Albertson, Stu Erwin, Tom Patricola, Nick Stuart, Rex Bell, Warner Baxter, Will Rogers, Dixie Lee, and boxer Jim Corbett.

Lots of energy here and Marjorie White (in her film debut) probably comes off best. She died in a car wreck in 1935. At only 4' 10" White was a dynamo of musical and comedy talent and had good supporting roles on Fox's JUST IMAGINE and SUNNYSIDE UP.

Of all the studio all-star revues, which often introduced many silent stars to talkies, HAPPY DAYS holds its own with THE Hollywood REVUE OF 1929 (MGM) and PARAMOUNT ON PARADE (Paramount) despite the lack of musical star power.

I'm a big Marjorie White fan,but as a young actress, on the stage since childhood, and already a big hit in Sunny Side Up, why she agreed to take the part in this one, along with Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor, I'll never know. On the whole, I find the entire film patently old-fashioned (even for its own time), ridiculously unfunny, except for George Jessel and Will Rogers, and I find it offensive to a great degree, the scene where the guy picks up Marjorie and physically throws her across the room, and the enormous chorus scene of blackface actors just horribly silly. And add El Brendel, the un-funniest comic of his time, and what we end with is a really forgettable piece, insulting, and not entertaining at all!

When the showboat she performs on is threatened with repossession, Marjorie heads to New York where she persuades all the stars there -- which seems to be the list of Fox contract players -- to perform in a minstrel show to lift the mortgage.

Yes, much of it is in blackface. Performers in solo and specialty numbers have the make-up removed, and the last twenty minutes or so is performed without the hated shoe polish. This is a good one, not for the number in which Edmund Lowe and Victor Mclaglen sing about how they really like each other, or for Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor singing the forgettable "We'll Build A World Of Our Own." But Broadway star Charles MacFarlane has a fine singing voice; Tom Patricola does a dynamite eccentric dance; and to watch Ann Pennington and Sharon Lynne dance "Snake Hips" in very revealing costumes is a treat.

This was the second movie shot in Fox's Grandeur Process, an early 70mm format. Unhappily, the copies at are available are in standard format and rather blurry. But there are some surprising techniques, like a Busby Berkeley shot and extended sequence of single dancers in full body length, well before these techniques became standard.

It's one of those movies that the major studios made in this brief period, showing off their stars in song and dance, whether they could sing, dance or not. Given the inherently mixed bag nature of the genre, this is a pretty good example of the revue format.

I refer to one of the cast in the chorus (as far as I know), Harry Lauder. You have flagged him up as the famous Scottish Variety Theatre singer, but that is incorrect. It was not Sir Harry Lauder, who was 60 in 1930.

The Harry Lauder (10 Nov 1902, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland, - 5 Dec 1951, Sydney, Australia, youngest surviving son of Matthew Currie Lauder) who appeared in "Happy Days" was Sir Harry's nephew, and also named Harry.

Harry II, as he liked to be known, was a child musical prodigy with a rich tenor's voice. Following The Great War his famous uncle, Sir Harry Lauder, sent him to Europe for a musical education, including Milan and Paris, where he had vocal training, and he subsequently sang in minor roles in Paris and Britain in Puccini and light opera. He then went to Chicago, U.S.A., where he appeared with the opera company, also undertaking training as a conductor. He then joined the U.S. Gilbert & Sullivan Rep.Co., and toured widely (notably in Richmond, Virginia.), both singing and conducting.

He subsequently conducted Fox Movietone News for 18 months before William Fox suggested he come to Hollywood to work for him there. He then moved to Los Angeles and set up a teaching studio in Glendale. It is unclear what he did for Fox in Hollywood, although he took minor roles in "Happy Days" (1930) (chorus) and several other Fox films, which seem to have gone largely unnoticed.

Lavish story-revue from 1929, originally filmed in a widescreen process called Grandeur, puts most of Fox's roster in a minstrel show format; there's a plot surrounding it, but it's forgotten after the first half hour or so. You have to endure some badly dated acts, including the insufferable El Brendel and the sappy Janet Gaynor (she doesn't sing, she coos) and Charles Farrell (body of Adonis, voice of a fifth grader), but along the way you do get some good stuff, and an entertaining look at what was considered top-notch diversion around the time the stock market was crashing. Marjorie White does some hot scat singing and steps lightly; Ann Pennington and Dixie Lee dance up a storm; Victor McGlaglen and Edmund Lowe do a buddy number (McLaglen can actually sing, Lowe can't); the boxing champ James J. Corbett is a personable interlocutor; Will Rogers, Warner Baxter, and George Jessel do cameos; and poor old Charles Evans' show boat gets saved. The chorus girls are beefy and klutzy (Betty Grable's in there somewhere), the production design's clever, and there's an odd lighting effect that turns actors from blackface to white with the flick of a light switch. Heaven knows you couldn't get away with this stuff today, but the songs are catchy, there's some fine dancing, and among the large roster of early talkie musicals, this one's fairly diverting.