Primavera de Amor

Actually, the songs for this film; Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder (For Somebody Else), Bad Baby, Cryin' For The Carolines, Have A Little Faith In Me, How Shall I Tell?, What's The Big Idea? were not written by R&H but by Harry Warren.

This was Harry's big break into Hollywood songwriting for the silver screen. Due to the success of his music in this film, Harry Warren was brought out to Hollywood for a second film, "42nd Street", which is by and large considered to be the "grand daddy of all musicals".

Harry then left Tin Pan Alley, and signed on to write the music for another 32 Warner Brothers films. Many of these were co-written with Al Dubin, and then later on with Johnny Mercer.

In the end, this was the first film that Harry wrote music for. He went on to be the most successful songwriter in Hollywood, and that success propelled him to the top of the pop charts as well, writing 81 top ten hits, along with eleven Oscar nominations for best song.

This is seems to me to be a very true adaptation of a Broadway musical of the late 20s, filmed in quite a static way with the characters lined across the screen playing it exactly as if they were also across the stage bellowing lines into each other's faces so the back row could hear it. Given this performance is for a film it seems nobody thought to re direct it for a cinema audience who could hear every word courtesy of fantastic chunky Vitaphone gramophone sound. There is no doubt the dippy parents and flapper daughters play it well to the audience who even might have been expecting a play on film. SPRING IS HERE is quite funny, very stage bound and completely what we expect 80 years later: stodgy comedy, vaudeville mugging wonderful Rogers and Hart music all flattened into the technical aspects of the time. This film is a curiosity piece really, and would irritate your friends who do not understand that it is the restrictions of the medium of the time that makes a film like this attractive to those who love 1920s sound films. Beautiful clothes and sets add to the fun; but do not inflict this film on anyone not familiar with the time tone and tinniness. Maybe play the scenes of just the songs, as they are terrific. No wonder the talkies took off, but you can also see why depression audiences soon tired of songs being yelled at them.

SPRING IS HERE is a breezy, yet undistinguished early sound musical. A hit on Broadway, it suffers from the overproduction of musicals at the time (meaning it received no special consideration during its making) and from a director who brings no visual flair to the medium. What we're left with are pleasant performers and pleasant, if not memorable, tunes. The standout performance here is given by Louise Fazenda, a ubiquitous figure in these early sound musicals made at Warners. Her portrayal of a character who is simultaneously embarrassed and titillated at the innuendo surrounding her is delightful and captures the necessarily frivolous tone needed in such a piece. Incidentally, Fazenda was the first in the sound era to portray the dumb blonde, an archetype that still pleases to this day.

"Spring is Here" is a very early musical. While musicals were quite popular in the early days of talking pictures, most of them were like "The Gold Diggers of Broadway" and "The Broadway Melody"--stage productions where groups of chorus girls danced about for audiences. The musical style where folks were NOT on stage and just broke into song was a bit later invention. But, "Spring is Here" is a fluke--one of those 1930s films where music was woven into the story---much like the later Jeanette MacDonald films of the mid to late 1930s. However, since it is such an early version of this style musical, it came out before the genre was fully developed. In other words, it's a bit rough and doesn't translate as well to audiences today. The singing is DEFINITELY not the sort that will have you humming along with the singers. Instead, it's very operatic and the voices see odd in a movie--not at all natural and a bit tough on the ear. I am not saying it's bad singing--just odd given the plot. Also odd is that the singers stand so still and they are usually filmed in closeups--most likely because the sound equipment was very primitive and wouldn't allow for more naturalistic shots (much like in early talkies where folks stand in one spot so the microphones will pick up the sound properly).

Despite the primitive nature of the film, however, I found "Spring Is Here" to be very watchable--mostly because I liked the parents, Louise Fazenda and Ford Sterling. Both were veterans of Mack Sennett silent comedies and both made nice transitions to sound in this film. In particular, Sterling was a very funny character playing the father of the leading lady. As for the leading lady (Bernice Claire), she is being wooed by two guys--her ex-boyfriend and a handsome new guy. With a little help from her sister and mother, the old boyfriend manages to once again catch her eye. Who will she end up with and how? See this cute little musical comedy.

By the way, this being a Pre-Code film, you might be surprised by a few of the more suggestive but funny lyrics and situations in the film. And, get a load of the kiss in the garden--one that long and passionate never would have been allowed in the post 1934 era.

Early musical about fickle Betty of the Long Island "fashionable set", the kind who seem to mostly go around with tennis rackets and ukuleles gripped in their hands. She stays out 'til five in the morning "riding" with a new fellow (leaving her regular beau high and dry at the dance) - so her grump of a dad decides he needs to put a stop to that kind of stuff and "get her a good husband". Well, when the regular fellow, Terry, shows up next morning, dad practically proposes himself - but Betty won't marry Terry. Terry IS in love, so - given the push by Betty's little 16-year-old sister (who looked to me about 35), he decides to spark Betty's jealousy by flirting with other women. And boy does he - including giving a passionate kiss to Betty's mom!

This film is pretty silly, though has moments - such as the dad spouts a number of pretty good one-liners and there is a little bit of pre-code naughtiness too. The whole film comes across as a little stiff and stage play like - it includes characters bursting into song here and there, most of which are fairly mediocre, though I thought a few of the numbers were kind of catchy. The lead actors in this are not very memorable (though, at least, they sing well) - the most interesting characters are actually the girl's parents, quite amusingly portrayed by Ford Sterling and Louise Fazenda - the mom is depicted as very dizzy (reminded me of Gracie Allen). Betty turns into a "yes dear" baby talker kind of gal in the end, oh well. Fun, light entertainment.