On with the Show!

Desperate for Broadway, the traveling troupe of The Phantom Sweetheart must always go ON WITH THE SHOW!

Here is another very early talkie musical, full of excitement for the new medium, but bloated by too much talk, unexciting songs sung by the chorus with mostly unintelligible lyrics and an overlong running time. The plot deals with the usual frustrations & jealousies that most backstage musicals seem to find requisite.

The cast includes William Bakewell as the head usher eager to get his sweetheart, box-office girl Sally O'Neill, her chance at the Great White Way. Betty Compson plays the temperamental star and Arthur Lake the whiny young male lead. Louise Fazenda is the company's eccentric comedienne, who is given little to do but laugh at inappropriate moments.

The film does have some compensations. Rubber faced Joe E. Brown is cast as the company's brash comic and, as always, he is funny simply to look at. Best of all, the incomparable Ethel Waters is brought in to sing a couple of songs, including 'Am I Blue?' Miss Waters has no connection with the rest of the story whatsoever, but just enjoying her for a few minutes is pure pleasure.

This one will probably be of interest only to fans of the early talkies. Because it is made so early in the talking picture era, it suffers from dialogue overload, which results in an over-long run time of 103 minutes that could have easily shed 30 minutes without anyone objecting or even noticing. The main thing that harms this film is that it was originally shot completely in two-strip Technicolor, but only the black and white prints made for television remain. As a result you have lots of chorus girls parading around in elaborate gowns, pausing for the audience to get an eyeful, and then moving on. In black and white these scenes are just dull and stagnant, but if you've ever seen the same thing in the remaining color reels of "Gold Diggers of Broadway" from the same year, you realize how truly spectacular this must have looked to 1929 audiences. Also, Alan Crosland's sharp visual style includes lots of cross-cutting so that you don't have the claustrophobic static effect that you normally get from Vitaphoned films whose camera booths could not move an inch.

It is a show within a show, the film being the story of one make-or-break night in the life of "The Phantom Sweetheart" and its cast, as it lumbers towards Broadway. You get to see "The Phantom Sweetheart" play out in its long-winded entirety, which actually contains the high-points of the film. These include two numbers by Ethel Waters as herself performing "Birmingham Bertha" and "Am I Blue" as well as the eccentric dancing and acrobatics of Joe E. Brown. Ms. Waters has no dialogue in the film, and for that matter her excellent numbers have absolutely nothing to do with the plot of "The Phantom Sweetheart", which is an inane tale of a young man who comes home from a long trip to marry his girl, but falls for a mysterious nymph of the woods and has to decide whether to go with this surreal and beckoning creature, or stay with the girl to whom he is betrothed. Harold (Arthur Lake), the double-minded young star of the Phantom Sweetheart, is as annoying and whiny on stage as he is backstage.

Backstage, the center of attention is Kitty (Sally O'Neill), an usher with the show who is in love with the other usher and whose father has invested everything he has in the world with the show. Betty Compson, the most overworked actress of 1929, is the "phantom sweetheart" and star of the show who threatens not to go on if she isn't paid her back wages. This film is full of performers who are either the victims of the transition to sound or the product of failed Warner Brothers experiments with stage performers. Thus, you'll likely not recognize 80% of the cast. For example, Sally O'Neill had been making a good career in films in the late silent era. Unfortunately, in reality she was saddled with a heavy New Jersey accent that is compensated for in this film by making her overly-sweet. A little bit of cute sweetness would be a good thing, but since she is basically the female lead here, I was ready to shoot an arrow through her forehead at the film's half-way point just to put an end to her bubbly babble.

So watch it for the wonderful Ethel Waters as herself, for Joe E. Brown and his well delivered smart comments and acrobatics, and for the infancy of the urban working-class banter that will become Warner Brothers stock and trade during the early 30's.

Early Warner Bros. musical, stagy, slow, and mostly of historical interest. The poor quality film available for viewing doesn't help. It's interesting to see how much the movie musical improved between this movie and, for instance, "42nd Street" (also a Warner Bros production) just a few years later. The dialog portions are very static, presumably due to the requirements of early sound pick up systems. However, the result is to bring the action to a halt. The overacting is almost unintentionally laughable. Betty Compson finally has a decent scene near the end of the movie. Arthur Lake is just plain irritating, and I couldn't even warm up to Joe E. Brown. Some of the singers seems to be recorded live, and others poorly dubbed. By far, the most interesting scenes are Ethel Waters singing "Am I Blue", and the quartet of black tap dancers who are unidentified.

OK, so it's the old story about what goes on backstage in the production of a Broadway musical----even to the cliché of the star getting sick and the understudy taking her place and becoming a big star. Many critics see this as the inspiration for 42nd STREET, but this film has the period charm that only the transitional talkie musicals could have. Part of it is quite stagebound-----including musical numbers as you probably would have seen them on the Broadway stage in the 1920's, so if you don't care for very early musicals, you'd better pass on this one.

This was the film that introduced the song "Am I Blue" sung by a very young Ethel Waters, and followed by the even better "Birmingham Bertha" with black dancer John Bubbles. You should be warned that there are black dancers in the cast who wear some outrageous politically incorrect costumes---including one number where their costumes have watermelon stripes on them! And seeing Joe E. Brown as a mean comedian who constantly argues with Arthur Lake (better known as Dagwood Bumstead in the BLONDIE Series) will be something of a revelation to his fans. The film was made in the early two-strip Technicolor process, which unfortunately has yet to be found, but is still quite enjoyable in B & W. Remember, although this is a very charming transitional talkie musical, modern audiences will only see it as a horribly dated antique.

Sally O'Neil couldn't sing or dance but that didn't stop Warner's giving her a leading role in this Technicolored song and dance fest. It was the very first all talking, all singing, all dancing, all Technicolored movie produced at Warners, who had dazzled audiences with "The Jazz Singer" in 1927. All color movies were never going to work in those early sound days, apart from the fact that colours didn't photograph true (blues tended to turn green and people's faces photographed pink), Technicolor needed lighting ten times as bright as black and white photography, so the heat in the studio was always intense. "On With the Show" was going to be the first of many Warner's films filmed in colour but aside from the problems mentioned, by the end of 1930 musicals were on their way out so only a few films were made. Now only Technicolor fragments remain - the finale from "Gold Diggers of Broadway" and "Wild Rose" from "Sally" etc.

For years "On With the Show" was famous for being the film that "42nd Street" (1933) took it's plot from but it is clear that the only thing they have in common is the "eager newcomer saves show" cliché. Still in May of 1929 audiences would have been dazzled not only by the singing and dancing but by the glorious colour as well. The plot revolves around the off stage dramas and the musical numbers of "The Phantom Sweetheart", a play beset by financial worries and stuck in a one horse town - tonight it is Broadway or bust!!!

Kitty (Sally O'Neil) a ticket seller, believes she could be "Broadway Bound" if only she was given a chance to prove herself. Jimmy (William Bakewell) the Head Usher and her sweetheart agrees. Meanwhile the cast are more concerned about their unpaid wages than "putting on a show" - most vocal is Harold (Arthur Lake) the whiney voiced juvenile, whose offstage bickering with his partner Joe (Joe E. Brown) is a running gag throughout the movie.

The musical show starts out with a rousing ensemble number "Welcome Home" -highlight is a group of spirited tap dancers. Next temperamental star Nita French (Betty Compson) "in the flesh, baby, in the flesh" sings "Let Me Have My Dreams" - it is sang constantly throughout the film. Ethel Waters is then announced by Sarah (Louise Fazenda is a standout with her wicked laugh) and Ethel's performance is timeless. She sings the magnificent "Am I Blue" and later on the wonderfully saucy "Birmingham Bertha" ("I'm a real Simple Simon, wouldn't you know - I gave him a diamond and all of my dough"!!!). The wonderful John W. Bubbles from Buck and Bubbles is the cheeky dancer. He originated the role of Sportin' Life in the 1935 production of "Porgy and Bess" and even gave tap lessons to Fred Astaire. But those two timeless classics are interspersed with some not-so-great ones - like "Lift Your Juleps to Your Two Lips", another hearty ensemble piece in which Harold as the "leading juvenile" doesn't sing or dance but stands around posturing while Joe E. Brown, who is not very funny in this film, does an eccentric dance. Jimmy suggest that maybe he can rob the box-office, that way the cast will get their wages - later on there is a real robbery and of course Jimmy is the chief suspect. The big production number is "In The Land of Let's Pretend" - it would have looked spectacular in Technicolor. It's an extremely "talkie" film and seems quite long. It is densely plotted and there are so many speeches in the last third of the film - everything has to be explained - obviously they didn't think the audience could figure it out for themselves.

When the studios found out Betty Compson was an accomplished musician her career was given a new lease of life in these singy, dancey days. Arthur Lake had the most irritating voice in films - it's hard to believe that he lasted long enough to be given his dream role of "Dagwood" at the end of the thirties. The Fairbanks Twins also provide some humour as a pair of high stepping chorus girls.

Highly Recommended for Ethel Waters.