Spring Is Here

...-and short!-adaptation of Rodgers & Hart's Broadway success (the movie adds some songs by Harry Warren and lyricists Sam Lewis and Joe Young). And I admit my affinity for such a movie probably springs from my curiosity regarding early sound musicals, so your mileage -and appreciation - may vary.

Alexander Gray is well cast as the hero, coming across rather more relaxed here than he did in the previous year's Sally; the engaging Bernice Claire also stars as one of the era's stock characters, the young woman yearning for excitement. Lawrence Gray plays-much as he did in The Patsy-the good-natured bad boy enticing our heroine from her too-meek suitor, and gets to bestow his pleasant light tenor on the score's most enduring hit, "With a Song in My Heart."

I'm having difficulty tracking down a detailed description of the story of the original Broadway show; but it appears to me that there must have been a subplot in the Broadway show involving the younger sister (in the movie, played by Inez Courtney) and her beau (the movie's Frank Albertson) which was subsequently cut for the movie, as Albertson's role serves no purpose plot-wise in the movie (but he contributes some sprightly song and dance, notably-with Courtney-the title song). All of this is cheerfully entertaining and well-done, if somewhat standard fare; elevating the movie into must-see status, however, are Mack Sennett veterans Ford Sterling and Louise Fazenda as the much-tried comic parents. Sterling, who always completely inhabits whatever role he plays-OK, he hams it up (but all to the good)!-has been underappreciated for about three-quarters of a century or more, and is long overdue for a renaissance of interest, for his early work as well as his late work.

The Brox Sisters give a wonderful rendition of "Cryin' for the Carolines." Direction and camera-work are workmanlike-skillful if uninspired; but the writing is clever and blithe, and sometimes refreshingly suggestive. Recommended. I'm surprised that the stage show Spring Is Here has not been a regular on the community theater and civic light opera circuit; cheerful, undemanding, modest in its production needs, uncontroversial, with familiar theatrical "types," it seems to be tailor-made for semi-professional offerings.

SPRING IS HERE is a charming curio that is a bit more fascinating than it is good entertainment but it's that too. This is one of the first movie musicals to have been a film version of a Broadway musical, an early semi-success for Richard Rodgers and Lorenzo Hart. The most interesting thing to me is that while the songs are quite nice (though they are mostly indistinguishable love songs, with the notable exception of the outstanding classic "With a Song in My Heart"), the "book" (story) is the highpoint, thanks to lots of really funny wisecracks and some racy "adult" situations that are quintessential late 1920s/early 1930s Manhattan humor.

Coquette Bernice Claire sneaks back home at 5 am, having abandoned both the party she attended and her longtime dullish boyfriend Alexander Gray after meeting the jazzier Lawrence Gray there. Father Ford Sterling is outraged at this new "beau", a stranger who would keep his daughter out all night and tries to push her bland boyfriend into marrying her. Bernice however will have none of it with a new man to consider. Her "kid" sister Inez Courtney (allegedly 16 and, as has been mentioned, looking quite into adulthood) has sympathy for Alexander and tells him the way to get her back is to become a romantic cad and flirt with other women. That night at the family's party, Alexander reluctantly follows this advice and kisses and flirts with practically every woman at the party (including, most outrageously, Bernice's bird-brained mom Louise Fazenda). He does manages to invoke Bernice's jealousy but then Lawrence shows up and manages to still hold her attention.

This little movie (barely over an hour) is cute little musical but it's certainly imperfect and while an "early" musical, it was not one of the first ones (movie musicals had been around already for a year in 1930) for some of it's flaws to be dismissed. Most annoying is the movie is almost completely filmed as if it were a stage musical, with performers usually facing toward the camera rather than toward each other in love songs!! Lawrence Gray gets top billing here apparently because he had the most film experience of the young leads (including the male lead in lone Duncan Sisters feature musical, IT'S A GREAT LIFE) but his part is decidedly secondary to Alexander Gray and Bernice Claire's and he is rather miscast as a "fascinating" stranger, if anything he's duller than Alexander. Alexander Gray looks a lot like contemporary actor Aidan Quinn with a touch of James Cagney. He's better looking than his rival and gives a good performance as the bashful beau, alas while his singing is good he unfortunately twists his mouth into strange shapes while singing which is quite distracting. Bernice Claire has a lovely voice but her character is kind of a brat which is a mistake for a romantic lead I don't think Rodgers & Hart ever repeated again. Veteran comedienne Louise Fazenda spouts her lines with an affected ring perhaps to suggest simple-mindedness and it does get to be a bit much at time.

The movie is stolen by silent comic sidekick Ford Sterling as the patriarch of this family of femmes, he's hilarious and much more appealing in the type of put-up middle-aged man that Edgar Kennedy would play in scores of movies. Sterling is so terrific in this it should have led to a major career as a supporting character actor in talkies. SPRING IS HERE is no classic but absolutely worth checking out for fans of the art deco era, movie musicals, Rodgers & Hart, and silent-era comedians and holds up as entertainment a little better than most musicals from 1929-1931 despite it's imperfections.

"Spring is Here" is a very early musical. While musicals were quite popular in the early days of talking pictures, most of them were like "The Gold Diggers of Broadway" and "The Broadway Melody"--stage productions where groups of chorus girls danced about for audiences. The musical style where folks were NOT on stage and just broke into song was a bit later invention. But, "Spring is Here" is a fluke--one of those 1930s films where music was woven into the story---much like the later Jeanette MacDonald films of the mid to late 1930s. However, since it is such an early version of this style musical, it came out before the genre was fully developed. In other words, it's a bit rough and doesn't translate as well to audiences today. The singing is DEFINITELY not the sort that will have you humming along with the singers. Instead, it's very operatic and the voices see odd in a movie--not at all natural and a bit tough on the ear. I am not saying it's bad singing--just odd given the plot. Also odd is that the singers stand so still and they are usually filmed in closeups--most likely because the sound equipment was very primitive and wouldn't allow for more naturalistic shots (much like in early talkies where folks stand in one spot so the microphones will pick up the sound properly).

Despite the primitive nature of the film, however, I found "Spring Is Here" to be very watchable--mostly because I liked the parents, Louise Fazenda and Ford Sterling. Both were veterans of Mack Sennett silent comedies and both made nice transitions to sound in this film. In particular, Sterling was a very funny character playing the father of the leading lady. As for the leading lady (Bernice Claire), she is being wooed by two guys--her ex-boyfriend and a handsome new guy. With a little help from her sister and mother, the old boyfriend manages to once again catch her eye. Who will she end up with and how? See this cute little musical comedy.

By the way, this being a Pre-Code film, you might be surprised by a few of the more suggestive but funny lyrics and situations in the film. And, get a load of the kiss in the garden--one that long and passionate never would have been allowed in the post 1934 era.

This early sound preservation (sort of) of one of Rodgers & Hart's minor Broadway successes (104 performances at the Alvin Theatre at the end of the roaring 20's - March 11-June 8, 1929) was released July 20, 1930, just as the country started its slide into the Great Depression, but bears no actual responsibility therefore.

In truth, the film isn't exciting structurally, despite retaining several R&H standards from the stage - the title song, "Yours Sincerely" and "With A Song In My heart". Hollywood at the time was shameless in gutting successful stage properties of the very things which had made them successful in the first place and, in pre-Crash 1929, 100+ performances put SPRING IS HERE in the "hit" column, but it remains a pleasant entertainment and solid reminder of good light 1920's entertainment.

Possibly the most interesting aspect of the film however, is the one Broadway cast holdover - Inez Courtney as Mary Jane. Ms. Courtnay repeats a couple of her songs from Broadway and began a decade long career in Hollywood that would culminate as the unforgettable "Ilona' in Lubitsch's LITTLE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER which in turn helped inspire the later Broadway musical SHE LOVES ME.

While not a great musical or movie, the remains of Rodgers and Hart's score is a fine one - so fine in fact, that three years later the Vitaphone Corp. would give it (and the show) another outing with a two reel "Broadway Brevities" short called YOURS SINCERELY. Still minor, but still very entertaining.

Worth seeking out. Not a lost treasure perhaps, but very nice costume jewelery.

SPRING IS HERE (First National Pictures, 1930), produced and directed by John Francis Dillon, is a surprisingly entertaining early sound musical comedy taken from the story by Owen Davis Jr., and stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, who also composed the songs. Though headed by two Gray actors, Lawrence and Alexander (no relation), the plot very well belongs to the third billed Bernice Claire, a talented young singer in her day with few film credits to her name. Most noted for her screen pairing with Alexander Gray, a baritone singer, in both feature-length (1929-30) and later 20-minute musical short subjects (1934), SPRING IS HERE, their second collaboration, is believed to be their only surviving musical feature film.

Opening title: "The Peter Bealey Home on Long Island's fashionable North Shore - a morning in June." The domestic comedy set to song interludes revolves around Betty Bealey (Bernice Claire), a free-spirited young lady whose father, Peter (Ford Sterling), disapproves of her being out all night and sleeping in all day. After returning home at 5 a.m., Peter draws the line of his daughter's carefree activities. Aside from coping with his younger daughter, Mary Jane (Inez Courtney), and her courtship with Stacey Hayden (Frank Albertson), along with his ditsy but squeaky speaking wife, Emily (Louise Fazenda), Peter disapproves of Betty's latest beau, Steve Alden (Lawrence Gray), whom she's only known a short time. Hoping she'd settle down and get married, Peter tries his best to encourage Betty into marrying Terry Clayton (Alexander Gray), a clumsy but shy young man with some sense, unaware that Steve who comes from a wealthy family.

Through its brief 68 minutes, SPRING IS HERE contains enough songs for a 90 minute feature, including that of: "Spring is Here" (sung by Frank Albertson and Inez Courtney); "Yours Sincerely" (sung by Alexander Gray and Bernice Claire); "Bad Baby" (sung by Inez Courtney); "Crying for the Carolines" (sung by The Brox Sisters during party sequence); "With a Song in My Heart" (sung by Lawrence Gray and Bernice Claire); "Having a Little Faith in Me" (sung by Alexander Gray); "How Shall I Tell?" (sung by Bernice Claire/ written by Sam Lewis, Joe Young and Harry Warren); "What's the Big Idea?" (sung by Inez Courtney and Frank Albertson); and "With a Song in My Heart" (sung by Gray and Claire). Of the selection of songs, many which are quite good if not everlasting to memory. Only "With a Song in My Heart" is the most familiar, considering how it's been immortalized in the musical biography, WITH A SONG IN MY HEART (20th Century-Fox, 1952) starring Susan Hayward as famed singer, Jane Froman.

While the other Gray-Claire screen collaborations of NO, NO NANETTE (1929) and SONG OF THE FLAME (1930) have been lost to revivals, SPRING IS HERE, survived intact, giving film buffs some basic idea of their work and on-screen chemistry. Other than noting how Claire wears two different hairstyles at once (hair covering the left side of her face and hair combed back on her right side, exposing both face and ear), it's also easy for anyone who missed seeing Claire's name in the opening credits, to somehow mistake her for a youthful, dark-haired Penny Singleton (then performing under her real name of Dorothy McNulty), the same Singleton years before her acclaim in the long-running "Blondie" movie series (1938-1950) for Columbia. Claire also quotes one interesting line worth noting, "A woman is as strong as her weakest moment." As for Alexander Gray, it's worth mentioning how his talking manner and singing differ, from mildly speaking to rich baritone voice. It's a wonder how much further the careers of Gray and Claire might have gone had musicals not fallen out of favor for public acceptance by the end of 1930.

Aside from some surprisingly risqué dialog and funny nifty comebacks during moments of comedy, there's also some very amusing scenes provided by the frustrated Ford Sterling and scatterbrained Louise Fazenda, former comics of silent comedy shorts whose characters here seem to precede that of Archie and Edith Bunker from the classic "All in the Family" TV series of the seventies. There's also Inez Courtney giving a sassy performance for comedy relief so reminiscent to the then notable Warner Brothers comedienne of Winnie Lightner. Other members of the cast include Natalie Moorehead as Rita Conway, and Gretchen Thomas as Maude, among others.

SPRING IS HERE, while no masterpiece, gets by on both comedy and sometimes corny musical interludes. Let's not overlook the legendary "With a Song in My Heart" (which is scored during the opening credits) which highlights the film. Regardless of its age, this musical antique is a worthy rediscovery and something to consider whenever it turns up on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. Spring is here. (**1/2)