La ragazza del bacio

John Harron, Jack Oakie, Ned Sparks -- who actually smiles in this movie, a terrifying sight -- and Guy Buccola are a jazz quartet who aren't doing well. Coming home with groceries, Harron runs into starving Betty Compson, and invites her to join them for dinner. When she claims she plays the violin, they lend her one.... and she's good. Soon they are making a living, playing for restaurateur Joseph Cawthorn, when prince Ivan Lebedeff comes to the restaurant, and recognizes Miss Compson; this gets Harron jealous.

Miss Compson is terrific, of course; her performance aided by her first job in show business, as a violinist, but this first production by RKO, with a score by Oscar Levant, is cannily directed by Wesley Ruggles. Over at First National, all the musical numbers seemed to be shot long distance on a proscenium stage that would make the one at Radio City seem a shoebox. Ruggles shoots them naturally: a jam session in the apartment, a performance or two in the restaurant, accented by a moving camera, while elements of the Gus Arnhem Orchestra did the actual playing, and only the last number on a big stage.

In the end, it's a well produced minor semi-musical that succeeds by the simple expedient of doing some things very right, and nothing wrong. That may seem like small potatoes, but is actually unusual. As the first movie produced, if not released by RKO, it was a major hit, and deserved to be. If it has fallen into desuetude, it is because the vast majority of 1929 musicals are properly held in low esteem -- First National, I'm looking at you! -- and this one is unfairly lumped in with them.