Service with a Smile

Service with a Smile (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Leon Errol plays a gas station owner who gets a call in the middle of the night saying his piece of junk station has blown up. Knowing he's going to get the insurance money, he decides to make his status out to be something much better than it actually was. Errol tells a story about a neon lights station being ran by chorus girls. SERVICE WITH A SMILE comes from Vitaphone, features a familiar comic and best of all is in glorious 3-strip Technicolor. There's no question about it but the Technicolor is the reason to check out this two-reeler. Those familiar with these early color films know that the quality of the color is usually very high as long as the materials are good and thankfully they're terrific here. Just check out the sequence in the bedroom with Errol gets the news. The color on his pajamas just jumps right off the screen as do the beautiful looking blankets on the bed. The colors of the room just leap right out at you and this is especially true once we get to the fantasy sequence with all the red neon and the girls. The music numbers are also fairly good and a lot of credit goes to the set designer for making everything look so good. Errol gets a few funny lines here but mostly he's just introducing the music numbers and the girls but hey, there's nothing wrong with that!

Leon Errol owns and operates a gas station. One night he is informed that his business has burned to the ground. At first he is distraught, but then his wife reminds him of the insurance that they took out on the place. Leon sees a chance to rebuild the gas station into something grand. When he meets with the insurance adjuster, he describes a much fancier place than ever existed. Will he get away with his lying thieving ways? Watch and find out.

The first live-action three-strip production, excluding films made for test purposes, was a short subject filmed at the World's Fair in Chicago in October 1933, not this short, which was released in 1934. Prior to three strip Technicolor, only the colors red and green and combinations of those two colors could be shown. Thus this musical comedy short has dancing girls with bright purple shirts to show off the new capabilities.

Hollywood studios were at first hesitant to fully dive into Technicolor's new, revolutionary three-color, three-strip film process. Through years of experimentation and unveiling inferior processes, Technicolor finally achieved its goal of capturing the full-spectrum of colors in its film. But studios stubbornly clung to using cheaper black-and-white film stock. During the summer of 1934, though, Hollywood began to take steps to use and showcase Technicolor's amazing aesthetics on the screen.

Three short movies introduced the public to the jaw-dropping technology that was so long promised. Walt Disney had led the three-color parade with his "Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees" cartoon two years earlier, while a first live action brief segment appeared in the last reel of February 1934's "The Cat and the Fiddle." Warner Brothers was the first out of the gate to produce the first Technicolor three-strip complete live-action color movie, albeit only 17-minutes, in "Service With A Smile" on July 28, 1934. Starring comedian Leon Errol, the actor takes the viewer on a tour of his modern automobile service station, complete with a golf course, along with chorus girls performing maintenance on his car while pumping gas.

Absolutely dazzling and delicious, this eye-popping 1934 Technicolor musical short made at Warner Bros is a must-see for any person and friends who love this vintage era of music and film. As with GOOD MORNING EVE made at the same time, this features Leon Errol and his corny vaudeville jokes wrapped around one singular idea, and - yippee! - is filmed in full spectrum Technicolor. What a treat. I insist you also read all the other comments on this site for SERVICE WITH A SMILE because they will say all the wonderful things I could repeat. I am not sure what disc from WB this features on but it is a treat beyond expectation. It makes you realize how sensational the Technicolor of the time was and also how hilarious was the WB style of chorus girl comedy. With snappy songs, snazzy deco design and delicious color, SERVICE WITH A SMILE is set in a roadside car service station run by girls and with facilities as risqué as the pre-code days would allow. Whoever said it is a vintage car lovers delight is also correct. I thank whoever has preserved and reissued this short; SERVICE WITH A SMILE is quite perfect. For technical buffs, it is a treat to see the overlapping color lines where some of the negative has shrunk, thus inadvertently allowing us 75 years later to get a glimpse of the technique used.

"Service with a Smile" (1934) is a deluxe Vitaphone mini-musical filmed in the early 3-strip Technicolor process, and the brilliant colours in this short film are incredible! (Although some of the male performers look ridiculous in bright green shirts that are nearly phosphorescent.) The tunes are catchy, the lyrics are well above average, and the chorus girls are gorgeous. If you've ever wanted to see a line of chorus girls tap-dancing in riding boots and jodhpurs, this movie's your big chance.

Australian-born musical-comedy star Leon Errol (a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies) plays Walter Webb, the owner of a small service garage with only one petrol pump. At 4 a.m., he's home in bed when one of his employees rings him up, telling him the service garage was destroyed in a fire. Fortunately, Webb has insurance. Now he hatches a plan: Webb will tell the insurance adjuster that his cheapjack little filling station was actually a super-colossal extravaganza business with hundreds of employees. The insurance company will have to replace the big fancy business which Webb CLAIMS he lost, not the small-time concern that he actually insured. In the insurance agent's office, Webb starts to describe his jumbo-sized filling station.

Now, thanks to some movie-musical magic, we SEE the gas station as Webb is describing it. He's got dozens of beautiful girls (in skimpy boiler suits) working as garage mechanics, gas jockeys, and waitresses. They sell gasoline for nine cents a half-gallon, and they transform a customer's beat-up jalopy into a gorgeous motorcar for $1.65, with a free lunch thrown in. There's even a 19-hole golf course behind the lube rack. Meanwhile, the girls have plenty of time for singing and dancing. If a guy wants a date, Webb's chauffeur will drive out to meet him with a lorry-load of girls dressed like the Stepford Wives, and you can have your pick. Yes, this is a FULL-service garage.

There are some very funny gags. One motorist is parking with his girlfriend, until a motorcycle cop comes along and persuades the girl to join him on his motorcycle. No problem; the motorist opens the boot of his car and takes out another girl! "I always carry a spare," he says.

SPOILER COMING. After Webb describes the super-colossal gas station he SAYS he owned, the insurance adjuster insists on inspecting the wreckage of the fire. Webb happily drives him out there ... and discovers that his service station (in its original grotty state) is intact. The phone call was an April Fool joke ... and now Webb is guilty of filing a false insurance claim. Oo-er!

"Service with a Smile" is a delight from start to finish. I have only one complaint. Leon Errol was famous for doing a hilarious rubber-legged eccentric comedy dance: he did it in the Ziegfeld Follies and in several of his "Mexican Spitfire" films with Lupe Velez. Unfortunately, Leon Errol DOESN'T sing or dance in "Service with a Smile" ... which is a shame, because his comedy dancing would fit right into the gorgeous musical numbers you'll see here. Still, I'll rate "Service with a Smile" 10 points out of 10. They don't make 'em like this any more. Do whatever it takes to see this knockout mini-musical.