Harmony Heaven

By 1930, the transition from silent film to talkies in Britain was almost complete. Alfred Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' had been released the previous year in both silent (for theatres which had not yet converted to sound) and sound versions, and had met with much acclaim. Because of this and the ongoing sound revolution in the USA, Associated British Pictures, who had produced Blackmail, were keen to exploit the popularity of talkies, and what better genre of film than a musical to demonstrate how great sound in cinema can be?

Harmony Heaven was the first of a number of musicals to be produced throughout the 1930s, and aimed to show audiences how much potential sound had in films. Unfortunately, Harmony Heaven is very much a by- the-numbers musical and stylistically is a big step backwards considering the technical standard of films which were being produced only 12 months previously. The story begins with would-be- songwriter Bob Farrell (Stuart Hall, in his one and only lead role) trying to get his song pitched to the producers of a popular stageshow (called, conveniently, Harmony Heaven). His brief audition is a disaster and Bob finds himself being cruelly laughed off the stage by the cast and crew. One of the girl dancers, Billie Breeze (Polly Ward) feels sorry for Bob and tries to cheer him up by making him dinner, and he soon takes a shine to her. She encourages him to write a better song, and he gets to work. He returns to try and get his new song played and ends up unintentionally impressing the theatre director. When Stuart, the star of the show (a "swanker"), tries to trip Bob up, Bob retaliates and knocks Stuart out just as he was due on stage. With no choice, Bob takes to the stage himself and is a huge success, even dragging Billie on stage with him for a number. As his fame grows, his relationship with Billie is put in jeopardy when he is introduced to the mysterious Lady Violet.

The loose story is really just a hook to hang the musical numbers on, and the acting ranges from unimpressive to embarrassing. Stuart Hall in particular has no screen presence and seems happy to be along for the ride. Though I was initially critical about the standard of the musical numbers, the film evidently left enough of a mark to warrant revisiting, and it does have a distinct charm, even accepting that this is musical cinema in its embryonic form. The dancing itself is at least entertaining, but in itself nothing particularly special.

The film is directed by Thomas Bentley whose vaudeville experience qualified him more than most to direct Harmony Heaven, but after making a large number of silent films throughout the '10s and '20s, it was always going to be a big ask for any film director to adapt so quickly to what was effectively a new medium. Though the musical numbers generally sound clear, at times it's virtually impossible to hear what the actors are saying to each other, as the primitive sound equipment just couldn't cope with the acoustics of the large theatre where Harmony Heaven was filmed. Alfred Hitchcock himself, fresh from Blackmail, spent a few days on the set during filming, though there is no evidence of his influence here, nor seemingly any record of his opinion of the film itself.

A lot of these early British films may seem archaic compared to modern standards, but generally if they tell a good story a lot of the contemporary issues can be overlooked. I've recently been watching a number of the early films to be produced at Ealing Studios and really enjoyed them as the technical inferiority rarely gets in the way of the story or becomes a distraction. Unfortunately, in Harmony Heaven, it does. With all that said, this is an important film in Britain's cinematic history, and both the cast and crew were still struggling to keep pace with technology. Influenced by similar films from America, the only way could be up.

British musicals always took a more modest path than the American ones. In "Harmony Heaven", you can see that England in 1930 was far behind in technical proficiency. If you only pay attention to the sound quality, this film will seem quite primitive (e.g. in an early scene, where the theatre director character is clearly too far away from the microphone to be heard properly). However, I felt a sense of excitement seeing such an early musical - a silent film universe breaking into the first gush of full sound. This film, unlike those of the early sound films of the late 20's, was not a half-silent/half-sound film. It was purpose-built for sound. The film has the "look" of late 20's silent film in many ways... yet it has talking and music! Some of the songs in this film are lovely. In particular, the final song ("Harmony Heaven") was in my head for a long time after watching the film. The plot of this film has a kind of sweet, old-fashioned, sentimentality which is appealing in its understated nature. The musical finale is not spectacularly kinetic like a Busby Berkeley number, but is the best they could do at the time and it was a satisfying end. I also enjoyed seeing the sequences of early colour. You might regard this film as a kind of "forgotten first", worth a look if you want to catch a glimpse of how musicals began in British cinema.

I had only managed to see this once before,about 25 years ago at the NFT.They showed the "colour"print.I understand that in fact the colour was in fact stenciled on rather like the process that George Melies used in the infancy of the cinema.The print that i viewed yesterday was in black and white. This film is essentially a "putting on the show" film and the plot has great similarities with 42nd Street.However that is where the similarity ends.Whereas 42nd Street is brash and fast moving with Busby Berkleys production numbers,this is the opposite.In fact the "It must be June" number in 42nd Street resembles the musical numbers in this film.Rather ponderous affairs with little originality.The numbers are virtually all photographed from the stalls and there is even a final reprise where the principal actors and chorus come on stage for a final bow as if they were in the theatre. The sound is rather interesting.Clearly the cast and crew were not familiar with sound films.There seems to be a static mike because the actors often seem to be rather distant from the mike and thus quieter than they should.There is one scene where the actors are trying to speak their dialogue above the din of an orchestra and fail miserably.Obviously no balance could be achieved on the sound at that time.Compare this though with "Blackmail"to see what could be achieved you are interested in early musicals or the British cinema this is a must for you.