Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors

Typical early musical revue short in sound. Nothing more than a group of rather stiff looking gentlemen in dinner suits singing a couple of tunes and playing their instruments.

An early Vitaphone film, this Warner Brothers short apparently was one created using a very complicated system through which an accompanying record was synchronized with a movie camera. There were several serious setbacks for such a system (such as if a film skipped--it became out of sync for the rest of the film plus the records quickly wore out--and 20 showings was the normal life-span of the records) and even though it produced excellent sound, it was eventually replaced. The last of the Vitaphone films were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.

Gus Arnheim and his Ambassadors were pretty typical of the talent Vitaphone used for its shorts. This band had achieved some fame and were asked to perform for Warner Brothers in this short. It's an all musical short--with no dialog. The quality and style of the music is about average for the day and the singing, while a bit thin, was pretty much what I've seen in many other similar films of the day. Overall, it's pleasant and inoffensive as well as an important historical document of a bygone era.

The introductory title to the short I watched calls it "Gus Arnheim and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra" although the table of contents on the DVD packaging lists it as "Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors." The former title is not listed in IMDb so I'm assuming they're the same. The plot synopsis is the same, at any rate. I'm not familiar with the tunes but the music is nice enough for background music - the kind that's good to listen to when you're cleaning the house. The singing style (which I've heard in many old films) is not one I care for. It's too tinny and thin, almost whinny. So, an interesting bit of history but not memorable.

This early Vitaphone entry showcases one of the most popular bands of the era. As a fascinating, historical piece of pop culture, it satisfies the appetite of anyone who appreciates big band music of the Roaring '20s.

The sound quality is excellent as is generally the case with these shorts, a testimony to the fidelity of the Vitaphone technology at that point in the development of sound films. The image quality of this print isn't up to the level of most extant Vitaphones, but nothing that distracts the viewer's attention.

It is fortunate that these films have survived as a valuable soure of reference to the styles and mores of a bygone era.

... and the popular titular Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors. By 1928, Vitaphone figured you could not get much out of one stationary camera booth lodged at one angle at a stationary act. To get a bit more out of their system they would sometimes use multiple camera booths so they could at least get multiple angles. This was necessary for acts like Gus Arnheim and his orchestra.

In this case the band plays Nobody But You, That Reminds Me of You, and a jazzy rag with vocal accompaniment by the band's tenors. A variety of instruments are spotlighted, and since that requires looking at individual members of the orchestra as well as the band as a whole, multiple camera booths were required.

This short is one of several done by Vitaphone that demonstrated the kind of musical popular in the 1920s that was listened to on the radio or danced to in person.

Gus Arnheim had small roles as a bandleader in early sound films such as "Broadway", "Flying High" and even "Scarface".