The Love Department

Bernice Claire runs the agony aunt column in the newspaper. Unfortunately, her romantic agenda isn't going anyplace, so she and her friend take a cruise to the Riviera. On the boat she's shmoozed by some college football players and sings a couple of songs in this typical Vitaphone variety short.

Miss Claire made a stab at the motions pictures with the dawn of sound; she had the lead role in the 1929 version of NO NO NANETTE. Like fellow Broadway singer Irene Dunne, she made an initial splash, but when musicals faded, so did her movie career, although she continued on stage. She died in 2003, ten days shy of her 97th birthday.

"The Love Department" is a short musical from Vitaphone. While it might have played well back in 1935, today it just seems very dated...particularly the singing and dancing. The best way to describe the singing by the lead, Bernice Claire, is that it sounds an awful lot like Snow White singing in the Disney film. It's high and unpleasant.

The story begins at a newspaper. The lady who writes the advice column for lovers is tired of writing about romance and wants to experience it. So, she and her friend go on a cruise on the Riviera...and the film essentially seems to say that romance is best found close to home.

Overall, while this is a well made film, the singing just is too much...too high pitched and not at all memorable...at least in a good way.

A better-than-average Warners musical short and a real charmer. The featured artist is Bernice Claire (sister of Ina Claire, who's probably best known as the "other woman" in Garbo's "Ninotchka"), who's got a quite good operetta voice. The songs by Mack David and Sanford Green are uninspired but serviceable, but the whole thing is done with a real flair for visual style and choreographer Allan K. Foster does a lot with a small chorus line and a low budget. Cinematographer Edwin DuPar does a good job of lighting and framing even though some of the sets are pretty obviously painted backdrops. The final "Old-Fashioned Cottage" scene is especially audacious in visual design and execution. This one is worth seeing if only for the awesome contortionist dancing by the Gaylene Sisters, who steal the movie out from under the principals.