Sunday Night at the Trocadero

I can't think of a worse musical short I've seen from Metro, hosted by REGINALD DENNY, the distinguished looking British actor. He's seen at a nightclub called the Trocadero, taking candid photos of the various celebrities enjoying a night out.

The soundtrack is appallingly bad, with none of the dialog understandable for the average viewer and full of name dropping remarks from Denny as he acknowledges the famous faces from the '30s.

Movie buffs will easily recognize some of them: Arthur (Dagwood) Lake, Dick Foran, John Howard, Chester Morris, Robert Benchley, Connie Boswell, Groucho Marx, Frank Morgan, Eric Blore, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh.

The music performances are way below par. A trio of sisters is the worst act of all and the bandwagon of George Hamilton is so-so. Boswell's voice is fine but her choice of numbers is questionable, to say the least.

Pretty bad considering it coasts on its musical talent and it sounds as though it's coming from outer space, so bad is the soundtrack. Picture quality is fine though, but you might as well have a tin ear as far as the music is concerned.

Peter Lind Hayes as a hopeful picture discovery doing some imitations and mugging his way through bad material, at least shows promise as a standup comedian that he became later on.

"Reginald Denny and Galaxy of Stars" is how this is billed in the beginning credits.

Interesting at first to see real-life footage of people at a nightclub, complete with cigarette girls, dress and hairstyles of the period. Then it goes into a corny story of a lowly poor usher-type guy who is ready to break into the talent show business....and he's terrible.

Along the way we get some lame comedic acts and some orchestra numbers, some solo singing efforts, that are "fair to good." Personally, I liked the up-tempo numbers better, like the finale with The Brian Sisters.

It was cool to see stars like Groucho Marx (sans mustache) in the audience, along with Frank Morgan, Robert Benchley, Frank McHugh and others.

The worst part of this was the sound quality. I saw this on a Marx Brothers DVD (" Night At The Opera") in which the movie and the other features all came through sharp and clear....but not in this short. I couldn't decipher about half the dialog, which was very annoying.

Kind of hokey, but some fun songs and dance numbers in here. George Hamilton is the emcee, and we start off with "Cuban Pete". The picture quality is quite good, but the sound is TERRIBLE... muted.. it stops and starts. some silly bits in between the dance numbers. Lots of big stars from the day popping up here and there... it was 1937, after all. "Anything but Love, Baby" by Connee Boswell, which is a VERY different version than we hear in ""Bringing up Baby". and some real silly, goofy bits, which may have been amusing at the time, but are pretty dated at this point. Fun to see some big names like Groucho Marx, Robert Benchley, Bert Wheeler, Eric Blore, and more. This one has some fun, old time big stars, but it's almost painful to sit through, with the poor sound quality. I would have turned it off, but I did want to see the film that came on after this. Shown in-between films on Turner Classic Movies. Directed by George Sidney, who had directed some biggies. Viva Las Vegas with Elvis, Scaramouche, Bye Bye Birdie, and Harvey Girls. interesting, for history's sake.

Just watched this rarity on the A Night at the Opera DVD. It takes place at the title nightclub with many celebrities in attendance. One of them was Groucho Marx, here with then-wife Ruth Johnson, who's seen without his trademark greasepaint mustache and eyebrows. There are also much enjoyable music and dancing depicted. Connee Boswell provides an enjoyable number and then when The Brian Sisters develop stagefright, she also does a nice teaming with them. Unfortunately, there's also an unfunny impressionist and I mean unfunny both in who he impersonates and what lines he gives. Actually, many reviewers here also complained about how low the volume seemed to be so maybe that was my problem as well. Anyway, Sunday Night at the Trocadero is worth a look for the rare chance to see Groucho on film as he really looked off-screen during this period.

Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937)

*** (out of 4)

MGM short has Reginald Denny hosting three musical acts including Louis & Celeste, The Three Brian Sisters and Medina & Mimosa. The acts are singing inside the Trocadero, which has many famous faces including George Hamilton, Groucho Marx, Frank Morgan, Frank McHugh, Robert Benchley and Dick Foran. If you're a fan of any of these actors then you might want to check this out if you must see everything they've done but there are a lot of weaknesses here. For starters, the sound quality is very poor and I don't think this is an issue with the print shown on TCM. It really appears that the sound was recorded poorly and this leads to the issues. Another problem is that the comedy is just downright bad. The musical numbers are certainly worth listening to as are seeing the famous faces.