Jazz Heaven

From the start, "Jazz Heaven" veers off the beaten track in agreeable ways. After opening with a lingering shot of the famous Flatiron Building on Manhattan's 23rd Street, followed by another lingering shot of a side street perpendicular to Central Park, Clyde Cook ambles past brownstones wet from a morning hose-down. He pauses to pick up a cat which he carries on his shoulder to his stoop where he pours milk from a bottle outside the door. Only then does the story kick in.

You see, Cook, the night watchman of a piano store, also runs a boarding house with his wife (Blanche Friderici). She is angry with one of the tenants, a struggling young songwriter (John Mack Brown) who has been playing the same melody on the piano all night, disturbing the other tenants. Brown's next door neighbor (Sally O'Neil), spontaneously starts humming loudly along with the melody; he overhears her, prompting a meeting which quickly turns to love. She happens to work for a music publishing firm run by two Jewish men (Joseph Cawthorn and Albert Conti) who seem like caricatures of the Shubert Brothers, a famous team of theatre owners who were known to bicker. They operate out of one of those buildings that gave the Alley its name, filled with cubicles in which songwriters or their song pluggers banged out their new tunes for potential buyers. The publishers spend as much time insulting each other or arranging dates with showgirls as they do picking potential hit songs. Several minutes are taken up with their linguistically fractured arguments, which amount to the insertion of vaudeville routines.

The oft-repeated song in question is "Someone," a charming composition by Oscar Levant (who also gave us "If You Want the Rainbow, You Must Have the Rain" and "Loveable and Sweet," to name just two, in the early "talkie" era). Both Brown and O'Neil sing it at different points in the film.

If you excised all of the shtick (including the cat and milk bottle scene) the actual plot would fill perhaps 45 minutes.

Johnny Mack Brown stars as a songwriter who gets thrown out of his room because he plays the piano at night. After his piano is smashed while moving it, his landlord (Clyde Cook)lets him use a piano in the building where he is a night watchman.

Little do they know, however, that they are in a recording studio and the microphone is on. When the music starts, the guys in the control booth shut off the boring speaker and pipe the music through, which causes an avalanche of mail wanting information about the song, "Someone." The search for the songwriter starts a competition between battling business partners (Joseph Cawthorn, Albert Conti) and the radio station owner.

Sally O'Neil gets top billing and plays the girlfriend with that Jersey accent. Henry Armetta is the hapless piano mover, Blanche Frederici plays the landlady. The terrific song, "Someone," was written by Oscar Levant.

Jazz Heaven (1929)

** (out of 4)

Decent if predictable early talkie has Johnny Mack Brown playing Barry Holmes, a Southern man in New York trying to make a career out of writing music. One day in his boarding house he meets Ruth (Sally O'Neal) who decides to help him and sure enough they fall in love. JAZZ HEAVEN doesn't really feature jazz or heaven for that matter so I'm not sure what the title was for unless RKO was just wanting to use "jazz" to try and get a younger crowd into the theater. Either way, at just 68-minutes this here is pretty straight-forward and while it's not horrible, it's still not good either. This is clearly one of those films that has been forgotten through time for a reason. It's just not bad enough to have a cult following and it's not good enough to be remembered so the only ones who are going to watch it are those film buffs you enjoy early talkies, Johnny Mack Brown fans or those like me who simply like watching these forgotten films. I thought both stars were actually pretty good in their parts and there's no doubt that they did have some chemistry together, which made you want to pull for them. Clyde Cook was also good in his role as the landlord who tries to help the kids. The few music numbers aren't very memorable and there's no question that the film lacks an overall flare that makes it stand out.

Southerner Barry Holmes (Johnny Mack Brown) is a struggling composer living in Tin Pan Alley in NYC. His neighbor Ruth Morgan (Sally O'Neill) starts singing to his song while he's composing. They begin working together.

I really like the meet-cute. Other parts, I'm less enamored with. The old men are creeps. It would be better for a love triangle to have a hot evil manly producer type. He needs to be a real rival. This is mostly fine. It depends a lot on the song. The song is ok, but nothing special. If it could be special, the movie would be carried by that tail wind. As it stands, this is a lesser early talkie released in both silent and sound format. At least, I learned what was Tin Pan Alley.

"Jazz Heaven" is a very early talking picture and is the sort of old fashioned movie that many might dislike today because the plot and characters are so familiar. However, when it debuted in 1929, it was fresh and interesting...and it is very good if you consider this today.

When the film begins, Barry (Johnny Mack Brown) is banging away at his piano trying to write a hit song. But this up and coming song writer is stuck and needs help. Well, his neighbor, Ruth (Sally O'Neil) hears his music and begins singing along...and they both realize that together they can finish the song and Sally can put it across because she has a much better voice. However, it's not as easy as they think as Sally's VERY stereotypical Jewish bosses are more concerned about sexually harassing her than listening to the song. So how, then, do they get the public to hear it and make the pair a success?

This is a cute little romantic musical. While O'Neil's voice is decent for 1929, this style isn't the easiest to listen to today. However, their scenes together are quite nice and they are a likable screen couple and the film breezy entertainment. Not exactly brilliant but fun.

By the way, Brown soon went on to stardom...but as a movie cowboy, not a romantic leading man.