Trixie Friganza in My Bag o' Trix

Trixie Friganza was a great vaudeville star during the first two decades of the twentieth century. A large, buxom woman, she suggests a slightly older and decidedly more worldly Kate Smith. For some reason she never made it big in talkies. Buster Keaton fans may remember her as Anita Page's mother in Free and Easy, Keaton's first talkie. Despite a winning performance, the rest of her MGM career consisted of bits and walk-ons.

Ms. Friganza's talents as comedienne, singer, and bass player (!)are on display in this restored Vitaphone short, which serves as a reminder of one artist's gifts as well as of a nearly-forgotten era in American show business. Highly recommended.

This was another of the Vitaphone musical shorts on The Jazz Singer DVD made in the late 20s. This one featured a now-forgotten performer named Trixie Friganza who was quite a heavyset woman. The beginning is in freeze frame since that part is lost so only the audio is presented during that part before the remaining moving image matches the sound some minutes later. The first "song" which is talked through tells of spelling certain words she doesn't want her awake son to know. Then she takes her bass cello-which she obviously can't play-and tells of something else I couldn't understand. Overall, I thought this short was quaint and I did chuckle a little. So on that note, My Bag o' Tricks is at the least worth a look.

Trixie Friganza was a vaudeville headliner who had a substantial career in silent films as well. Her career tapered off during the sound era, my guess would be because of health issues. Her last film was the Bing Crosby feature film If I Had My Way and a number of former vaudeville headliners did some small bits in that film because the storyline involved a family of performers.

In My Bag o' Trix she does a couple of delightful numbers, one of them accompanying herself on a bass fiddle. She was a full figured gal in the tradition of Sophie Tucker. Had a talk/singing style similar to her as well.

I'm glad this short subject was saved for the most part although the first few minutes are apparently lost forever.

My Bag o' Tricks (1929)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fun short from Vitaphone features Trixie Friganza telling a story and then singing a song. At under ten-minutes there's no doubt that this thing isn't going to break new ground and it's certainly not a masterpiece but I think film buffs should enjoy it. Many of these early talkies featured performers that would just make one film in their careers but that wasn't the case here as we're pretty much catching Friganza at the middle of her career. She appeared in quite a few shorts before this and would continue to work at a nice pace so it's interesting seeing her here. The first minute or so of the film are lost so we've only got the audio. The story being told isn't going to bring tears to your eyes and the song too isn't all that memorable. What keeps the film entertaining is the fact that it's impossible to take your eyes off of Friganza as she's certainly got something that grabs you and makes you pay attention to her.

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.

Not surprisingly, a portion of this film (the very beginning) is missing due to nitrate decomposition. I say this isn't surprising because nitrate film stock is highly volatile--and had a strong tendency to decompose (turning to powder or melting) or even explode! As a result, a huge portion of the films before the 1940s have simply vanished. In this case, the first 1:58 seconds are gone. Hopefully, the rest of the film will one day be discovered and restored. What is surprising, though, is that ANY of these Vitaphone films exist in their entirety, as the record and film rarely stayed together. So, dedicated people had to match up the recording with the film and then work on restoring the entire package.

Trixie Friganza stars in this vaudeville-style short. What makes it unusual compared to so many of the Vitaphone shorts was that Ms. Friganza had a rather extensive list of film credits both before this film (in shorts) as well as afterwords. Most Vitaphone shorts featured people whose only appearance was in that particular shorts.

As for Ms. Friganza, her song numbers were definitely not particularly good--nor were they really intended to be. They were comical pieces and not in the least subtle. In many ways, Friganza looked almost like a chubbier sister of Marie Dressler and he had a real presence about her. And, despite her girth and age, she really, really put her all into the film--particularly the hula song later in the film. None of this is great but it was still rather endearing--as she was certainly the trooper! I particularly liked to watch her acumen with the Bass Cello!