Sweet Music

Sweet Music (SM) is an obscure little seen Warner Brothers musical comedy from 1935. It stars Rudy Vallee and Ann Dvorak, who were ably supported by such seasoned stalwarts as Allen Jenkins, Ned Sparks, Robert Armstrong and Alice White. SM has none of the fame generally associated with the Busby Berkeley WB musicals from the same period, although it was smartly directed by the veteran Alfred E. Green. He kept the proceedings moving at a fairly rapid pace, and the energy level of SM is just about as high as any of the better-known Berkeley films.

Rudy Vallee is often characterized as an acquired taste, but during the peak of his movie celebrity (late 1920s to early 1930s) he had achieved quite a following-----certainly as notable as contemporary crooners Bing Crosby and Dick Powell. Often somewhat stiff and bland in his early film appearances, Vallee showed us a much more nuanced screen persona in SM. He was at times romantic, funny, capable of dancing (somewhat) and personally very engaging in his role as the leader of a band (!) that presaged Spike Jones and His City Slickers (with a generous dose of antics a la The Three Stooges). Today, Vallee is probably best remembered for his several late film career straight character parts (e.g. The doctor in the movie version of I Remember Mama 1948) and The Boss in both the stage and movie versions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Ann Dvorak was an attractive somewhat offbeat looking actress who could sing, dance and emote at a level at least equal to the best of her peers-----including Joan Crawford and Ruby Keeler. She achieved early success with such hit films as Scarface (1932) and Three on a Match (1932), but the fame that Dvorak properly deserved somehow managed to elude her. Perhaps it was due to a feisty personality or possibly her relentless (often unsuccessful) striving for better roles that could appropriately utilize Dvorak's large talent. In any event, she never reached the fullness of her considerable potential, and spent much of her career mired in the world of "B" movies. During the WWII years, she was in England with her first husband (Leslie Fenton)-----and served there as a volunteer ambulance driver for her contribution to the war effort. This experience somewhat parallels that of Myrna Loy'in the same period, when Loy took a leave of absence from making movies in Hollywood and worked as a full-time volunteer with the American Red Cross.

SM is an unusual film, combining generous doses of wild slapstick comedy with many lovely sentimental musical interludes and an old fashioned romantic story of the "misunderstanding" variety. Vallee and Dvorak had a pretty good screen chemistry together, and Dvorak in particular was delightful as the engaging and energetic song and dance chorine whose on-again off-again romance with Vallee provides the principal support for the paper thin plot. Seeing it is a fun movie experience. Find it if you can!

Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler must have been busy doing Shipmates Forever or Flirtation Walk when Sweet Music was given to Rudy Vallee and Ann Dvorak as leads. The property is typical of the stuff Powell and Keeler were doing at Warner Brothers at the time.

Vallee appears in Sweet Music with his Connecticut Yankee orchestra and when they weren't backing Rudy up when he was seriously singing, they cut up in a way that was not seen until Spike Jones made an appearance. Rudy and Dvorak start out as rivals for a Broadway review and then a radio show. Of course you know in the end they'll discover true love.

Ann plays a dancer and I have to say she had some nice moves in Sweet Music. The score is from a variety of composers and it has some Vallee standards like the title song, the comic song Outside which he introduced in the Twenties and There Is A Tavern In the Town. However the main song of the score is the Allie Wrubel-Mort Dixon ballad I See Two Lovers which is done by Helen Morgan.

Morgan appears as herself and she is singing the song in an audition and Vallee accompanies her with his orchestra. It's one of her great torch ballads and it was also recorded by Russ Columbo and Dick Powell. Any one of the three recordings I have of the song is a treasure.

Some of Warner Brothers best stock players are in this film with Ned Sparks as an agent, Allen Jenkins as a publicity man with a streak of zaniness in him. One of his zany stunts involves Alice White trying to drown herself for love of Rudy Vallee which results in White's brother Robert Armstrong who's a gangster trying to arrange a shotgun wedding with Vallee and White. Watch the film if you want to see how Rudy gets out of that one.

Dick and Ruby didn't miss anything with Sweet Music, nevertheless it's a pleasant musical comedy from Warner Brothers and will give the viewer a lot of pleasure still.

The first fifteen minutes or so of "Sweet Music" plays like an uninspired Three Stooges short. What, one asks, are Rudy Vallee and Ann Dvorak doing in this trash? Then, out of nowhere the movie seems to come to its senses, turning into a standard and competent backstager about a radio band leader and crooner (Vallee, of course) and his rocky relationship with a singer-dancer (Dvorak). Inserted generously are performances by Vallee of pleasant if mediocre pop songs along with a couple of folksy numbers and a very busy production number of "Fare Thee Well, Annabelle" with loads of extra lyrics and patter and even a bizarre segment featuring a row of chorus girls in blackface, suddenly wiping it off mid-song (via camera editing); the choreography is by Bobby Connolly in Busby Berkeley mode.

Vallee's singing talent, preppie good looks and overall youthful charm are on full display, compensating for his cadaverously wooden effect in "Vagabond Lover" (1929). Dvorak displays a solid singing voice and assured dance moves as good if not better than anything Ruby Keeler ever displayed. The supporting cast includes Warner Bros stalwart Allen Jenkins, the ever-reliable Ned Sparks as a fast-talking press agent, Robert Armstrong showing comic flair as a gangster, Alice White on the career downslide as a sometimes clever, sometimes dumb chorus girl and even Helen Morgan singing "I See Two Lovers" in full throttle. Composer Sammy Fain (who contributed some songs to the film) also makes a cameo appearance as a singing pianist. Dvorak and White look great in snug generously accessorized Orry-Kelly outfits. For fans of the genre, a pleasant hour (not counting the opening scenes).

Rudy Vallee and his band turn professional about the time Ann Dvorak breaks out of the chorus with the help of agent Ned Sparks. As they move through the bypaths of entertainment, from being kicked out of a Broadway show to radio, they wrangle start to fall in love.

There's a little bit of everything in this musical, from raw slapstick performed by Vallee's band to idiotic back-and-forth lines traded by Allen Jenkins and Alice White, to gangster Robert Armstrng crooning out of the side of his mouth. There are even signs of satire, offered by Al Shean and Joseph Cawthorne as brothers who sponsor a radio show while they wrangle with each other. In other words, it's a kitchen-sink musical with Rudy Vallee the star of the show. He sings a lot of songs. Most of them do not please me. He singing usually strikes me as mechanical and lifeless, and his orchestrations dull. However, one song, "Fare Thee Well, Annabelle" is performed with a staccato rag beat and a full production number to back it (choreographed by Bobby Connolly) is so far from his usual mode and energetically performed as to enthuse me. There's also a great torch number by Helen Morgan.

... at least for a couple of years, and at least for the short B comedies they were making in the production code era. Losing Darryl F. Zanuck at about the same time didn't help matters either, but I digress.

Skip Houston's (Rudee Vallee's) band and dancer Bonnie Hayden (Ann Dvorak) are both on the same radio program, and go about antagonizing each other for no good perceivable reason. Secretly, Skip is trying to help her by planting positive comments in the columns about her performance and the fans' reaction. In fact, the fans are lukewarm. The two are starting to fall in love, but when Bonnie gets fired, she blames Skip and gives him the cold shoulder. Complications ensue.

In the precode era, Warner Brothers could turn out a zippy fresh 75 minute comedy pretty easily - some fresh precode one liners and situations punctuated by musical numbers after Busby Berkeley brought musicals back into vogue. But then the production code came along and all of that stopped for awhile, and dreck like this was made for a couple of years. Another film in the same vein as this is "I Live For Love". The problem is that the jokes that could pass the censors just weren't funny.

In this case, trying to pass for humor, you have bandmembers that smash each other over the head, men doing a fan dance, and Allan Jenkins telling jokes that weren't funny when bustles were still in fashion. For some reason, the wonderful Helen Morgan is imported to sing a torch song, but it just doesn't fit here at all. Plus Dvorak and Vallee have zero chemistry. The only bright spots are Robert Armstrong as a thug who wants to be a crooner and Ned Sparks as a sardonic agent.

I'd avoid this as it truly is awful.