Beautiful Clothes (Make Beautiful Girls)

Beautiful Clothes (1942)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Harry Langdon sings the title song in this short, which I read was made for video jukeboxes. I guess these were mainly featured in bars and other type places but it's the first film like it I've ever seen. Langdon sings throughout the short running time and even appears in drag. This film also features what has to be the dumbest model in history. At one point the camera goes on her and she's suppose to just smile but before doing so she looks left and right, apparently looking for the director, and then smiles before looking around for him again.

Harry Langdon gets top billing over the models in this recording of the title song in the soundie.

Soundies were short films, about three minutes in length. The were meant to be played on a machine called a Mills Panoram, a video jukebox that was typically to be found in bars, lounges, and similar venues. You put a dime in and got a performance from the ten on the machine. The movies would be changed weekly, and from 1940 through 1946, Mills and other companies produced more than two thousand soundies.

Actually that isn't Harry's voice that the great comic was lip-syncing to. It the voice of Cliff Nazarro, a double-talk comedian of the era.

Some time back, I'd read about an invention they tried out (unsuccessfully) in the 1940s. Music video-like productions were filmed and could be seen on machines in bars and restaurants--much like traditional juke boxes. Very few people know about these today and up until this film, I'd never seen any of these short films.

BEAUTIFUL CLOTHES is one of these films and was included in the recent "Harry Langdon: Lost and Found" DVD set. Believe it or not, it features an old Harry Langdon singing and performing in a cute skit with a group of models. While the other review is right that some of the models ain't too bright, Langdon came off very well--particularly because the films that exist from the later portion of his career were pretty poor. This is a slight improvement and well worth seeing if you are a fan of this all but forgotten comedian.