The Big Revue

The Big Revue (1929)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent one-reel short features three children acts, which includes dancing and singing. This ten-minute short would probably have been forgotten today but it was lucky enough to feature the screen debut of Judy Garland who appears here as The Gumm Sisters. Fans of Garland will know the history behind her earliest career so there's no need for me to go into that here. For the most part this was a pleasant short that was at least entertaining for what it was. I wouldn't say any of the musical acts were great but they're at least charming and worth sitting through the short running time. The camerawork is good as is the sound quality so those are two bonuses.

This short subject from 1929 is primarily interesting to a film buff because it is the first film appearance of Judy Garland. She was one of the Gumm Sisters at this point.

How is the film itself? Well, the print has all the problems of a multi-generational dupe, but it is a chorus show of young girls -- looks like about twenty of them -- dancing to some decent 1920s stage choreography. The camera-work is pretty good for a 1929 sound picture, with a couple of camera pans and the cutting is handled pretty well to show off the acts at appropriate distances. The chorus dance is in a middle long distance and the Gumm sisters have their act shot in medium and medium short distance.

I'm pretty sure the problems with the dupy look of the print could be fixed in a computer; they keep getting more and more clever about such things. Certainly the sound track can be cleaned up. I hope some one tries.