Harry Warren: America's Foremost Composer

Harry Warren: America's Foremost Composer (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Warner promotional short for their 42ND STREET has composer Harry Warren being asked to say a speech but he informs everyone that he's too shy so instead he does a few songs. You and Healthy, I Found a Million Dollar Baby, Would You Like to Take a Walk?, Have a Little Faith in Me and Forty-Second Street are just a few of the songs performed here. Yes, this is just a promotional piece but it's actually a very entertaining one and it thankfully doesn't just show clips from the motion picture. I really enjoyed how much life these songs were given not only by Warren but those dancing everything out. The film runs a brief 8-minutes but it's packed with great music, some nice visuals and enough action for two movies. I think most music experts would say Warren wasn't the "foremost composer" but it seems time has remembered him a lot better and he's been given a lot more credit than he was when this was originally released.

This was one of the weapons in WB's promotional arsenal for their big budget production of "Forty Second Street." Harry Warren was undoubtedly ONE of America's foremost composers--- demonstrated by the fact that many of the 75+ year old songs in his catalog are still known (and used in modern soundtracks) today. That said, I have to grumble when this implies he reigned supreme over the likes of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin or even Cole Porter in 1933--- Warner's puffery to be sure. This Vitaphone 'Pepper pot' short (weren't these shot in NYC?) is essentially Harry at the piano playing a menage of his well known songs, culminating with a short cut to the finale of Lloyd Bacon's 42nd Street. Somewhere in that shot are Ginger Rogers, Toby Wing and Una Merkel tapping away like mad. Interesting curio!

Although he isn't as well remembered as contemporaries Irving Berlin or Cole Porter, songwriter Harry Warren has many great standards to his credit: "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," "Jeepers Creepers," "We're in the Money," "I Only Have Eyes for You," and numerous others. Fans of Busby Berkeley's musicals made for Warner Brothers in the '30s will certainly remember Warren's songs, and so will baby boomers who grew up watching the Warner Studio's Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, for it was those cartoons that really kept the songs alive and passed them along to the next generation and beyond.

This little musical short presents Harry Warren himself, a rather modest-looking gentleman in a tux seated at a piano in a swanky Art Deco apartment, surrounded by elegantly dressed folk sipping cocktails. When someone praises Harry and calls for a speech, he demurs bashfully and insists [with genuine, non-actorly awkwardness] that he's no good at making speeches, and proceeds to play his songs instead. And that's what we're here for: one great song after another, a couple of which have been given comic, altered lyrics for the occasion, usually harping on how much money Harry has made from his hits (which suggests a touch of envy and anxiety in the depths of the Depression). A couple of numbers are performed by Margie Hines, a Betty Boop sound-alike who later supplied the voice for Olive Oyl when Mae Questel was otherwise engaged.

These Vitaphone shorts provided exposure for studio contract artists and performers, and also gave the technicians extra work and a chance to experiment: during the rendition of "Shadow Waltz" there's artsy lighting with silhouettes and such. This film is a pleasant little treat for fans of '30s musicals, but it's also an interesting example of the way the studios promoted their wares at the time, for the short ends with an excerpt from their current big release, 42ND STREET, which of course featured several of Warren's best known songs. In a sense this short film (intriguingly identified as a "Vitaphone Pepper Pot" in the closing credits) served as a trailer for the main event.

This pleasant short subject has Harry Warren playing some of his musical hits. As hits were coming to him for over 30 years and he started getting big time royalties in the middle 20s, a short subject here only covers a small portion of his career.

The setting is a swank party where the guests ask Warren to perform some of his hits. After that we get medley of songs, sung and danced to by the various guests. The Shadow Waltz from Goldiggers of 1933 was nicely staged with couples dancing in silhouette.

The finale starts with Warren playing the title song from 42nd Street and then it dissolves to the famous Busby Berkeley dance number from the film. As both 42nd Street and Goldiggers of 1933 were still playing this film was quite a plug for both.

Warren won three Oscars for Best Song in his career and not one of them had been composed yet. He's overlooked many times because he eschewed Broadway for Hollywood. But I daresay his melodies will live on and on longer than some of his contemporaries precisely because we can see the performances over and over.

Salvatore Anthony Guaragna from Brooklyn, aka Harry Warren you were one of the greatest.

In an intimate but swank looking room, Harry Warren plays the piano and sings a bit with his rather thin voice. Most of the time, he's joined by singers like Gladys Britten, The Leaders (a male quartet) and Margie Hines. Hines is easy to pick out because she was one of several women who provided the voice for Betty Boop. She also was one of three women who voiced Olive Oyl in the Fleischer Brothers' "Popeye" cartoons. She sings pretty much like Betty Boop (poor lady). The dance team of Marguerite and Le Roy also dance about the piano. In addition, several vignettes are featured, such as Warren's famous tunes "42nd Street". While I might not consider Warren the greatest composer...nor would many others (such as Irving Berlin), his tunes are very nicely presented in this short. And, he certainly was VERY prolific--with over 1700 entries on IMDb!!! Enjoyable.