Artie Shaw and His Orchestra

Artie Shaw & His Orchestra (1939)

*** (out of 4)

This short was one of three that Artie Shaw made at Warner during this single year. It's clear that Shaw was very popular back in the day as it was quite rare for any artist to get a second short let alone three in a single year. Thankfully Turner Classic Movies constantly shows all three and each of them are worth sitting through for fans of music who want to check out what was popular back in the day. The orchestra is what we'd consider a "Big Band" today but they're very tight and come together for a pretty powerful sound full of energy and emotion. The majority of the men have to stand in place but you can tell that they feel like jumping and bouncing around as they crank out the numbers. Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine' gets a spot here, which appears to have been a favorite for many performers in this era as it has appeared on a couple of these Warner shorts. 'Let's Stop the Clock' is another fast number with Helen Forrest also on hand. 'Pross Tchai' is the final number in the 9-minute short and Tony Pastor does the vocals and impresses to say the least.

This is one of a multitude of cheapie shorts produced by Warners and other studios in the 1930s and 40s, featuring simple bandstand shots of 15 to 20 piece "swing" bands -- now called "big bands" -- playing 3 to 5 of their standard repertoire numbers. The productions were generally unimaginative, and might now be considered boring if you're unfamiliar with or dislike the music and bands of that era.

As a second-rate, classically oriented high school, college, and military band clarinettist and saxophonist in the 1938-46 era, I disdained the swing band music, though I did play some of it. I'm now a fan of swing and jazz, perhaps from the contrast with all the popular music trends that have followed. In particular, I hated Artie Shaw, no doubt from having seen this or other appearances in shorts and feature movies. Now I recognize that he was a fine performer, in spite of lifting his fingers ridiculously high and having his ligature upside down -- facts that I would not have learned from hearing his records on juke boxes. (Ligature: the clamping strap device that holds the reed on a clarinet or sax.)

This is an interesting and entertaining little movie. I love it -- now.

This is one of the later Vitaphone shorts--known as a "Melody Master". These later musical shorts generally were more straight forward and had simpler sets and no real story to tie it all together--just a famous band of the day doing their stuff.

My summary refers to the choice of songs for this short. Like TONS of other Melody Masters, this one features "Begin the Beguine". Rarely do you hear a song repeated in the series, but on the 63 short series "Warner Brothers Big Band, Jazz and Swing Short Subject Collection", as least times you hear this particular song. Now it is a good tune but the Vitaphone shorts beat this one to death! As far as the songs go, the lady who sang was pretty good and I particularly liked the guy singing "Pross Tchai". However, nothing in the short was especially extraordinary--good but not at all extraordinary.

I mentioned this in my review of another one of Shaw's Vitaphone shorts that looking at the guy it was hard to imagine that he was married eight times--and to the likes of Lana Turner and Ava Gardner.

It is interesting to see Artie Shaw and Helen Forrest as they were in 1938. Growing up in the 1950's it put me about a generation away from their musical start. The film is a cookie-cutter short in black and

white, but the music is good and Begin the Beguine is a classic Artie Shaw performance. A young Helen Forrest is worth hearing and seeing, unfortunately the camera work is a static front shot.