New Shoes

A man and a woman try on new shoes in a shoe store...Jean Chatburn and Arthur Lake sit next to each other in a show store in this clever shortie from MGM. SO many shoe puns. and a clever bit where the mens and womens' shoes talk and sing to each other. We watch the shoes dance together in a nightclub, as Chatburn and Lake dance the night away. It's a pretty slick bit. Written and directed by Sammy Lee, a dancer director and choreographer. Plain and simple fun, with a couple songs thrown in. Now shown on Turner Classics in between films.

"New Shoes" is a nonsensical short made by MGM in 1936. It probably ran as one of the extra items with a feature length film that was shown at the time. Often times, studios ran cartoons, newsreels (i.e., "Movietone News"), and various little odd subjects with their main features. Most often these were comedies.

This short film has two parts. The one is a live action couple who meet while each is buying a new pair of shoes in a store. They go to dinner, dancing and fall for each other. The second part is the shoes - a male and female pair, that come to life. This might have been a precursor to Claymation.

It's all very silly and likely was done to let some artists have fun by filming some talking and winking shoes. One good aspect of this short is that we get to see the Andrews Sisters singing a song. Otherwiese, a good Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, or Daffy Duck cartoon would suit me fine.

Shoes in a shop window -- ladies' shoes voice by Mae Questal's Betty-Boop voice, men's by Billy Gilbert, chorus of heels by the Andrews Sisters -- help Arthur Lake and Jean Chatburn find romance.

With the shutdown of shorts production by independents like Hal Roach, MGM moved into production itself in a big way -- and big with MGM seemed to mean bizarre, Although stories told by feet alone in the movies had been around for a quarter of a century by this point -- take a look at Marcel Perez' AMOR PEDESTRE for example -- a look at this one gives me the impression there was a foot fetishist involved in this one.

Choreographer Sammy Lee makes the transition to director with this short. MGM used their shorts' department like a baseball team used minor league franchises, to test out their directors.