Spreadin' the Jam

Sally (Jan Clayton) is depressed at not having the rent money. Her landlady threatens to kick her out in twenty four hours. Her friends join together to throw her a rent party led by a bald headed neighbor (Ben Lessy). Most of the dialogue is sung to the tune of swing music. It becomes a musical short. The group does a lot of dancing and playing instruments. It's annoyingly wholesome and has a relative nothingness to it. In that sense, it is kind of cute. The dancing isn't anything special. Neither is the music. Lessy is doing most of the acting and he's good. This is almost camp and it's enjoyable.

Jan Clayton is short of money for rent, so neighbor Ben Lessy organizes a rent party in this musical short directed by Charles Walter as he made the transition from choreographer to director.

It's a lively short with good music by Les Brown and orchestra, with a bunch of White people singing and doing recitative in jive talk. Cinematographer Jackson Rose handles the camera with a lot of movement that convinces me it was shot with a crab dolly.

Miss Clayton was one of the many pretty young ladies who sang and made a stab at Hollywood, and was successful, although she never made it to stardom: 11 movies, a few shorts, and finally a long run on the TV show LASSIE, in which she appeared on well over a hundred episodes.

When the story begins, a lady cannot afford to pay her rent, so her friends organize a 'rent party' and try to drum up money for the landlord. It's the sort of thing that is reminiscent of films like "Babes in Arms"...where someone has a barn and they let the kids borrow it so they can put on a very professional Broadway style review....complete with music that appears from out of no where as well as many talented singers and dancers!

So is it any good? Well, the quality of the singing and dancing is good...which isn't surprising consider it's made by MGM. The lyrics are also pretty catchy....with plenty of jive lingo from the era. Also, the bald little leading man is pretty good...too bad Ben Lessy didn't make a lot more films. An interesting curio from long ago that folks might enjoy if they like swing music.