Let's Sing a Song of the West

Let's Sing a Song of the West (1947)

*** (out of 4)

Entry in Warner's "Memories from Memory Lane" with The Melody Makers singing four songs associated with the West. Deep in the Heart of Texas, My Little Buckaroo, Home on the Range and Stephen Foster's Oh! Susanna are the songs performed. This is the second film in this series that I've seen and this one too has the songs done and then re-done but the second time the words are on the screen so that those watching can sing a long. This type of entertainment at the theater is long gone but this short stands as a good, nostalgia trip down memory lane, as the title says but for different reasons. The Melody Makers have a nice sound to them and really deliver some nice performances of the songs. Dick Foran sings My Little Buckaroo from the 1937 film

Short subject from Warner Bros. pays tribute to some classic western ballads, such as "Home on the Range." There's a karaoke atmosphere about it, with the lyrics displayed on screen and the narrator encouraging the audience to sing along. It all may seem hokey to our cynical types today but it was probably fun for audiences at the time. The Melody Makers sing all the songs during the karaoke bits. There's some history given behind the songs and some old film footage used to illustrate this. Also there is Dick Foran from the 1937 movie Cherokee Strip, singing a cute song called "My Little Buckaroo." It's all harmless and mildly entertaining, depending on your tastes.

This film is well-made but also pretty dreadful to watch today. It's a combination of good production values from Warner Brothers and a campy schmaltziness that is hard to enjoy. "Let's Sing a Song of the West" consists of a bunch of old 19th century American songs. The history of the creation of the song is given and then there is a sing-a-long with Karaoke style words appearing on the screen. I assume back in 1947 folks in the audience sang along with this campy stuff, but today the songs (such as "Home on the Range" and "Oh, Susannah") just seem very, very dated--and singing to them about as thrilling as getting a lobotomy...with a corkscrew!! By the way, show the section on the Christy Minstrels to your very politically correct family and friends. Seeing them going into spasms and hysterics as a result of these awful images might be a lot of laughs---or induce a heart attack!

One of the numerous musical short subjects that the movie studios churned out, this one purports to offer you a sampling of Western songs from the old west and modern musical westerns: "Home on the Range", "Oh, Susannah", "My Little Buckaroo" and "Deep in the Heart of Texas" are offered for your enjoyment. All are offered as little vignettes; "My Little Buckaroo" is a clip from a Dick Foran musical Western.

Such featurettes were common to movie theaters. Indeed, photographs of early movie theaters advertise sheet music and performances; and Max Fleischer began his famous 'Follow the Bouncing Ball' series of cartoon sing-alongs in 1926

This is the kind of musical short that Warners produced during the '40s, a filler to be played between double feature showings.

Nothing extraordinary here, it's simply a sampling of western songs accompanied by "sing along" lyrics, with favorites like "Oh, Susanna", "Home on the Range" and "Deep in the Heart of Texas", as well as an excerpt from a Dick Foran western where he got to sing "My Little Buckaroo".

Gordon Hollingshead produced and Jack Scholl directed, but it's not much to shout about--just an example of how innocently naive movie patrons were to be treated to this sort of western nostalgia and definitely a product of its time.