Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors

This was yet another of the Vitaphone musical shorts that was on The Jazz Singer DVD I highly enjoyed. The title band is all the show here as they perform various tunes like "The Tiger Rag" that happened to be the theme song of my LSU Tigers football and basketball team. Just one ongoing number after another that provided great joy to I'm sure audiences of the day and certainly to yours truly who likes discovering vintage music and movies whenever I get the chance as I've had for the last several hours watching these vintage films. Since there's a requirement of ten lines in order for this review to be submitted, I'll just say that most of what I've seen so far, I highly was enthralled when seeing them. So that's a recommendation...

An early Vitaphone film, this Warner Brothers short apparently was one created using a very complicated system through which an accompanying record was synchronized with a movie camera. There were several serious setbacks for such a system (such as if a film skipped--it became out of sync for the rest of the film plus the records quickly wore out--and 20 showings was the normal life-span of the records) and even though it produced excellent sound, it was eventually replaced. The last of the Vitaphone films were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.

Gus Arnheim and his Ambassadors were pretty typical of the talent Vitaphone used for its shorts. This band had achieved some fame and were asked to perform for Warner Brothers in this short. It's an all musical short--with no dialog. The quality and style of the music is about average for the day and the singing, while a bit thin, was pretty much what I've seen in many other similar films of the day. Overall, it's pleasant and inoffensive as well as an important historical document of a bygone era.

This Warner Brothers Vitagraph short featuring Gus Arnheim and his orchestra was a real find for me on YouTube. For those that don't know Arnheim was a bandleader and composer of note from what is called the 'sweet' era in music which covers the early Thirties. Arnheim composed Sweet And Lovely and a couple of guys associated with him, Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo each made a great record of that song. Arnheim's band was the featured orchestra for many years of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Hollywood.

Gus jumped on the sound bandwagon with this short subject where we see Russ Columbo not only sing with a trio, but play the violin which he was also skilled. What was unusual for me and for Arnheim and Columbo was that in this film, Gus played jazz mostly. Later on he did nothing, but sweet music. And Russ Columbo in his short career recorded commercially nothing, but ballads. Unfortunately we heard no solo parts for Russ as he sang with a trio.

The best selection however was strictly instrumental version of Tiger Rag where the tuba was used to good effect imitating the tiger's growl. Great short subject recommended highly for those like myself who love this era's music.

... and the popular titular Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors. By 1928, Vitaphone figured you could not get much out of one stationary camera booth lodged at one angle at a stationary act. To get a bit more out of their system they would sometimes use multiple camera booths so they could at least get multiple angles. This was necessary for acts like Gus Arnheim and his orchestra.

In this case the band plays Nobody But You, That Reminds Me of You, and a jazzy rag with vocal accompaniment by the band's tenors. A variety of instruments are spotlighted, and since that requires looking at individual members of the orchestra as well as the band as a whole, multiple camera booths were required.

This short is one of several done by Vitaphone that demonstrated the kind of musical popular in the 1920s that was listened to on the radio or danced to in person.

Gus Arnheim had small roles as a bandleader in early sound films such as "Broadway", "Flying High" and even "Scarface".

The introductory title to the short I watched calls it "Gus Arnheim and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra" although the table of contents on the DVD packaging lists it as "Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors." The former title is not listed in IMDb so I'm assuming they're the same. The plot synopsis is the same, at any rate. I'm not familiar with the tunes but the music is nice enough for background music - the kind that's good to listen to when you're cleaning the house. The singing style (which I've heard in many old films) is not one I care for. It's too tinny and thin, almost whinny. So, an interesting bit of history but not memorable.