Show Kids

Made in 1934 as another Technicolor screen test for this sublime technology, this vaudeville kids show short, 21 mins, is invaluable, an antique treasure of the highest value for any family and every student of early talkies... in color! A simple and effective story of the kid saving dad's rundown vaudeville theater by staging a kids review, SHOWKIDS is as effervescent and candy-box as you or your family could imagine. Students of 30s art deco set design should have a copy and just marvel and learn from the backdrops and stage scenery alone. Cramming a toy-box of acts and laughs into so short a time + heartwarming and charming drama with hilarious and astonishing dance acts, satire, an adagio dance (!), tap dancing, gymnastics and some of the tiniest kids I have ever seen and heard perform ever... SHOWKIDS is a full rainbow of golden light from a more innocent age that celebrated hilarious tiny tots and their bigger friends and family in a cornucopia of long lost stage visuals and great klunky Vitaphone sound. You will find this treat on the WB DVD for The Gay Divorcée which also includes A Night At the Cocoanut Grove also in color from 1934 making it a DVD of the highest importance for fans of art deco color treasures.

Show Kids (1935)

** (out of 4)

Technicolor short has a theatre owner losing all of his business so he turns it over to his 12-year-old son who has a plan on getting people back in the seats. This is a mildly charming film that has several dance and singing sequences all being done by young kids. The music and songs are decent at best but the film has a rather strange tone to it that makes it rather hard to watch. The kids, all very young, are dressed like you'd expect to see adults meaning that they are wearing clothing to show off their bodies and I just found this pretty disturbing to watch. There's a scene of Tarzan and Jane like characters doing various tricks but the fact that both are nearly nude just sat wrong with me and I really couldn't enjoy the film because of this.

"Show Kids" is very unusual because unlike most Vitaphone shorts it is in color--and not just two-color but full Technicolor which was almost unheard of in any film from 1935. However, I should add that like many early color films, the colors are odd--especially the actors who seem to be wearing heavy make-up. My assumption is that Natalie Kalmus* had no idea what she was doing and simply had the colors overdone in order to make it 'snap'...though it actually made it look a bit weird in spots...as well as a bit blurry. Yet, in others, it was rather dramatic and eye-popping.

This short is little on plot and mostly is just a showcase for a bunch of kids as well as a way to show off the color system. Among the worst acts were the two small kids in sailor suits--the word 'godawful' would sum them up well. Most of the dance numbers were pretty good but the dancers were not exactly in sync...which is forgivable considering their ages. However, none of the acts were great or memorable and it really came off like a junior high school pageant with nice costumes. And, this is fine IF you have a kid in the show...otherwise, you probably would have little interest in the acts. That combined with eye-bleeding color make it a film most would be best to skip.



*Natalie Kalmus was the ex-wife of the inventor of Three-Color Technicolor. The inventor would only license the product if film companies agreed to pay Natalie to be their color consultant and for years she was the one to determine the colors used in films--such as the sets, costumes, etc.. Clearly at this early part of her career in the Art Department, she still had a lot to learn.

The "6" rating is for the color alone, although a young chap named Tad Alexander is good as the juvenile lead. When his father decides to close the theater because of dwindling business, he persuades him to let him put on a "kiddie show" that will lure patrons.

Tiny tots who were wannabee dancers and singers get to strut their stuff on the stage of a large Palace theater that has hit hard times during the Depression. Actually, these kids are the "Meglin Kiddies," trained at the Meglin studio like so many other show biz kids (including Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and many others). Too bad some of the best are not featured here.

The best feature about this short is the Technicolor photography which is excellent, obviously being "tried out" by Warner Bros. with their Vitaphone shorts. Unfortunately, this can't be said about the primitive sound quality of the songs and the high-pitched wailing of the numbers by kids who were obviously below the talent standards of those who made it big after such training.

Enjoyable only as an example of how good color photography was at the Warner studio in 1935. This means they could easily have filmed such features as "Captain Blood" in the new color process and gotten fine results, if not for the expense of shooting any feature film in color at that time.

Summing up: Worth watching as an antique, but some of these acts would have killed vaudeville.

Just watched this on The Gay Divorcée DVD. Shot in Technicolor, this was basically a revue of The Meglin Kiddies doing several song-and-dance numbers surrounded by a plot of the young son of the theater's manager attempting to bring business back to the house. The whole thing was pretty interesting to watch with some passably entertaining numbers though one does pause when one realizes these are basically children acting like adults when you see them in some skimpy clothing in public view. Still, no real harm is done and it passes the time enough that it's all over before you know it. So on that note, Show Kids is worth a look.