Un soir

STREET GIRL (RKO Radio, 1929), directed by Wesley Ruggles, is not a pre-production code movie about prostitution, but actually a breezy early talkie musical about a jazz quartet meeting Frederica Joyzelle, alias "Freddie," a Hungarian violinist (Betty Compson) who has no place to stay. She is given room and board by the leader of the quartet (John Harron), and must share the apartment with three other fellows. Because of their acts of kindness, Freddie puts the quartet to work and success by becoming their manager.

This long forgotten musical of 1929, from the magazine story, "The Viennese Charmer," that formerly played on American Movie Classics prior to 1993, and sporadically on Turner Classic Movies, surprisingly holds up through much of its 88 minutes, especially with Compson's violin solo of "My Dream Melody" (by Oscar Levant), reprized several times throughout the story. Other songs include: "Loveable and Sweet," "King of Othello" and "Broken Up Tune." Aside from John Harron playing Fall, there's Ned Sparks as Winter, Jack Oakie as Spring and Guy Buccola as Summer. With these names, it's easy to see why the band called themselves THE FOUR SEASONS. Ned Sparks is a great grumpy character who at one point forces himself to smile; while Jack Oakie, young and slightly thin, is still an attention grabber with his "comedy relief," especially when Compson, after being offered room and board in an apartment occupied by four men, looking around where she's able to sleep for the night. Oakie, already lying in his bed, with a sneer smile on his face, moves over the sheets and pats on the vacant portion of his bed. Also in support are Joseph Cawthorn as Mr. Keppler, Ivan Lebedeff as Prince Nicholas, and Gus Arnheim and his Cocoanut Grove Ambassadors.

STREET GIRL must have been a success because it was was remade twice by RKO: THAT GIRL IN Paris (1936) with Lily Pons, Gene Raymond and Jack Oakie (again); and as FOUR JACKS AND A JILL (1941) with Ray Bolger, Anne Shirley and Desi Arnaz (in the role originated by Lebedeff). The 1929 original is highly regarded to those who simply enjoy watching hard to find movies such as this. (***)

This 1929 original musical was a big hit (grossing more than $1M) for Betty Compson. She plays a "street girl," a homeless immigrant alone in a big American city. One rainy night she is saved from a lecher by a young man (John Harron) and invited upstairs for hot coffee. Harron is a musician and shares an apartment with three other musicians. They play for a local club.

Compson asks them to play for her and they do a swingy version of "Lovable and Sweet" (which was written by Oscar Levant and Sidney Clare). She tells them it's a nice tune but they need a violin. They produce a violin and she plays a soft and beautiful version of "My Dream Memory" (the talented Compson was also a concert violinist). It's a terrific moment.

She takes charge of the guys and gets them a gig for big bucks at a swanky restaurant where they become local stars. A dethroned prince from her home country drops by and almost steals her away but she has fallen for Harron. The film ends with a rousing dance number, "Broken Up Tune" as played by the group.

Despite the iffy accent, Compson is once again just wonderful. She has just the right touch of "old world" gentleness about her as she runs around managing the group) in a very aggressive American manner). Harron is also very good. He was the younger brother of DW Griffith star, Robert Harron, who died at age 27 from a mysterious gunshot accident in 1920. Kinetic Jack Oakie sings and dances (and fakes some clarinet playing). Acerbic Ned Sparks plays a few instruments as well and grouches at people. Guy Buccola is the fourth band member. Joseph Cawthorn (an expert at accents) is the club owner. Ivan Lebedeff is the prince. Among the big-band musicians is Russ Columbo, a major singing star of the 30s. Eddie Kane and June Clyde have small roles.

What this film is not, is a frenzied backstage musical, which was the rage for a time after the success of THE Broadway MELODY. After an initial craze, the public quickly tired of backstage musicals and all-star revues. STREET GIRL went in another direction, tying together a love story with music.

This film is worth watching for the great music and unjustly forgotten Betty Compson.

Street Girl (1929)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

After finding herself homeless and hungry, Frederika (Betty Compson) is giving a place to stay by Mike Fall (John Harron), a band member who lives with his three other players. Frederika believes that the group could demand much more money because of their playing skills and soon she's working as their manager and the five start to rise in popularity but when a Prince starts to woo Frederika, this doesn't sit well with Mike.

STREET GIRL was the first film ever produced by RKO, although it turned out to be the second that they'd actually release. For the most part this is a pretty good early talkie that manages to follow a pretty basic formula but thankfully the cast is so good that it makes up for the family story, which even by 1929 standards was pretty predictable. Of course, the majority of the credit has to go to Compson who easily steals the picture of the lovable blonde.

Compson has the misfortune of having to speak with a silly accent that goes in and out throughout the picture but outside of this she's certainly a delight to watch. She manages to be incredibly lovable from the first moment we meet her and you just can't help but fall in love with her just like the four roommates do. Another good performance comes from Harron who manages to pull off that jealousy role quite well and we also get Jack Oakie in a supporting part. Ned Sparks is quite funny as "Happy," the person constantly thinking someone is cheating him.

The story itself is quite predictable but the technical side of things are actually quite good for 1929. A lot of times these early talkies pretty much have the camera sitting still but that's not the case here as there's a little style on display here. There are some musical numbers throughout and all of them are quite good and it's worth noting that the violin playing is done by Compson herself. STREET GIRL certainly has its flaws but fans of the actress will certainly enjoy her work here and fans of early talkies should be impressed on a technical level.

This musical comedy near the dawn of the sound era follows the routine formula (boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl) but sports a nice jazz combo, with John Harron playing piano and trumpet (sometimes at the same time), Ned Sparks playing violin, Jack Oakie with a mean clarinet and Guy Buccola on the accordion. I never tired of the one bouncy show-stopper by Oscar Levant and Sidney Claire called "Lovable and Sweet," despite it being played and sung several times. In fact, I was humming it for a day or so. What surprised me was seeing Jack Oakie looking so thin I almost didn't recognize him, and John Harron as the romantic lead, since I was used to seeing him only in bit parts in 30's movies. I'm not sure if the music the boys played was dubbed or not, but the female lead, silent star Betty Compson, was an accomplished violinist and surely did her own playing. I rather enjoyed watching this film despite its triteness.

I'll say quite a few good things about "Street Girl." The overall plot is serviceable, the songs by Oscar Levant and Sidney Clare are nice period pieces (Levant spent much of his life trying to play on the pop-songwriting turf of his good friend George Gershwin, and he wrote one truly great song — "Blame It on My Youth" — but Gershwin he wasn't), the big musical finale "Broken-Up Tune" is suitably spectacular (I suspect this number was originally in two-strip Technicolor even though it only survives in black-and-white, and in the print just shown on TCM there's one shot in the final sequence that is photographically quite inferior to the rest, suggesting that the film as it stands was pieced back together from partial prints), and above all Wesley Ruggles' direction, though hardly at the imaginative level of Mamoulian's, Capra's, Wyler's, Milestone's or Vidor's in their first talkies, is quite fluid. The camera moves around quite a lot, the editing is fast-paced and the actors speak relatively naturally without the seemingly endless pauses between lines (sometimes between words!) that make a lot of early talkies virtually unwatchable today.

That's the good news. The bad news is the writer's dorky decision to change the origin of Betty Compson's character from a real country, Austria, to a fictitious one, "Aregon" (presumably not to be confused with the real Spanish province of Aragon); the awful accent Compson affects to sound suitably "Aregonese"; the casting of Jack Oakie without giving him any laughs (and he's utterly unable at any point to convince us he can actually play the clarinet); and a pretty sluggish pace despite all the camera movement and quick cutting. Also there's the obvious cheapness of using the same pre-recording of the song "Lovable and Sweet" all three times it's performed (you can tell because of the Beiderbecke-esquire "smear" John Harron's trumpet double performs in his solo each time). It ends up an O.K. movie but you get the impression it could have been better made a few years later — indeed it WAS made better on two separate occasions; "The Girl from Paris" isn't that great a movie either (though at least Lily Pons' accent is her real one!) but it's a damned sight better than this.