Words & Music

Ruth Etting was a great Broadway singer whose occasional assaults on Hollywood never quite panned out. She could deliver a song beautifully, but it seemed to end there.

In this Vitaphone short, Miss Etting stretches her acting chops by playing a Broadway singer named Ruth Etting. She sings a couple of decent but unmemorable songs and helps out a kid songwriter looking for a break while her piano player tries to steal his song.

Of more interest is the Broadway talent that trooped out to the old Vitaphone studios in Brooklyn to be in this. Bernard Gorcey, father of Leo plays a waiter and Ray Collins ekes out his brief foray into the flicks with a tiny role here. He would retreat to the stage the following year and not be seen in films again until CITIZEN KANE.

Singer Ruth Eton (Ruth Etting) is searching for new songs. Don Hopkins is a young songwriter looking to get his break when he spots Ruth entering the restaurant with her writer Al Morgan. Al gives him a chance, but the guy turns out to be a thief. Unbeknownst to him, Al passes off the song as his own for Ruth. Luckily for Don, his girlfriend had already sent in the copyright.

If this wants to be a Ruth Etting vehicle, she needs to have more time talking and dialoguing. The singing is expected. She needs to sell herself as an actual actor. Problem is that it's not her best attribute and she's a side character in her own short.

Words & Music (1931)

*** (out of 4)

Ruth Etting has pretty much been forgotten today but those who do know her probably remember the Doris Day portrayal of her in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME. This film features Etting playing a singer named Ruth Eton (how clever) who is growing tired of there not being any good songs out there to sing. About this time her dirty partner cons a new kid into giving him his song for "rewrites" but of course he ends up taking credit for it. A few months later the kid takes his sister to the movies where he sees Eton in a short doing his number. This short isn't going to make people forget the classics from this era but those who spend the 20-minutes to watch it are going to really be entertained. Etting comes off pretty well here and the two numbers (Still I'm Falling in Love, Now That You're Gone) are both entertaining. What really makes this short stand out is its story. It starts off pretty bland as Etting just complains about the poor songs out there but then things pick up when the movie goes away from her and looks at the naive kid who wants to get into the business but doesn't know what he's doing. This includes giving his song to the con man and we get a rather good bit about copyrights and so forth. I found the scenes with the kid to be the most entertaining and they alone make this short worth watching. Fans of the Bowery Boys series will get a kick out of seeing an uncredited Bernard Gorcey playing a waiter. Those only familiar with the series will enjoy seeing him so young and with a full head of hair.