... and for the film history buff this kind of stuff is priceless. I just love the very early Warner Bros. talkies and their goofy themes - "Dancing Sweeties", "The Mad Genius", "The Green Goddess", etc. Only at this time - 1930 - and at this studio could such films be possible, and this short helps explain how they were possible.
Only in 1930 at Warner Brothers - a studio with poverty row roots and a wad of cash from its part in the birth of the sound revolution, much like a bus driver winning the lottery, could you see such an awkward struggle to join the big leagues forever enshrined in celluloid. Let's start with the cast. How often can you find Sidney Blackmer, Evalyn Knapp and Claudia Dell billed above Edward G. Robinson and Joan Blondell? And there are Rodgers and Hammerstein, sitting at the same table, renowned for their music, but not together. At the time Sigmund Romberg and Hammerstein are collaborators and Rodgers and Hart are in partnership. Much ado is made about Marilyn Miller's presence and her next picture "Sunny", when the truth is Ms. Miller was to never have a hit picture again after her initial success in talking films - "Sally". Even mistress of ceremonies Little Miss Vitaphone - named after a sound system whose time had passed by the time this short was made - has to explain the absence of Warner's biggest stars - Richard Barthelmess, George Arliss, and John Barrymore. Telegrams are presented that are supposedly from the missing stars mentioning their next films where they are on location. As for obvious big gun Al Jolson, by this time he had already made his last film for Warner's until 1934 and - let's face it - Warner Brothers probably worked for Jolson as much as he worked for them during their three year collaboration 1927 -1930. Not even the studio system could ever put a harness on big Al.
As for the premise of this short, it is completely false. The only milestone 25 years before 1930 would have been in 1905 when the Warner Brothers opened their first nickelodeon in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and then only as distributors. They didn't dabble in film creation for another ten years after that and got their first hit with what was basically a WWI propaganda piece - "My Four Years in Germany" in 1918. 1923 is really the birth of Warner Brothers as we know it, when they incorporated as a film production company. Today, 1923 is the date that WB counts as its birth year. Up through the 1970's though, you could still see references to 1905 as the date of the company's beginning.
The proceedings in their entirety are basically ironic. Two years later 23 of the stars here - and yes I actually counted them - had been fired by WB and drifted into cinematic obscurity. Still others such as Walter Huston and Walter Pidgeon went to other studios and had long careers elsewhere. All of these were replaced with players that could better project the urban look and feel that would take WB all the way through the 1930's and into the 40's - James Cagney, Dick Powell, Bette Davis, Warren William and others.
My recommendation - if you are into film history this short is priceless and probably even worth repeat viewings to pick up all the movie titles and names being thrown about. If this is not the case, you'll probably not really enjoy it.
