Vincent Lopez and His Orchestra

Vincent Lopez and His Orchestra (1939)

*** (out of 4)

Warner Bros. short, if you think about it, is just an early "music video", which features the popular Lopez doing various numbers with his band. Also on hand,a nd most interesting to films buffs, is the 18-year-old Betty Hutton who gets to do some jitterbug singing. I've seen three or four shorts to feature Lopez and he's certainly becoming one of my favorite musicians from this period. Or, at least his band are as they are constantly moving, swinging and just having a good time. The music is very speedy and sounds terrific and will have your shaking your foot in entertainment. Hutton, in one of her first roles, is also excellent here as she sits in on three songs and really delivers the goods. That husky voice packs a great punch when mixed with Lopez's music.

This old one reeler featuring numbers from Vincent Lopez and his orchestra is a precursor to modern music videos and is ten minutes of pure gold. I caught it as a 'One Reel Wonders' segment on the US cable channel Turner Classic Movies, which must mean it is an old MGM short. At any rate, I was blown away. This is a must have for Jazz enthusiasts. It features an insane young Betty Hutton, circa 17 years old, in one of her first film appearance. Her sexy, husky voice, and her care free bouncing off the walls (literally) manner immediately catches your attention. She sings and dances, if you could call it that, to two songs, most memorably a very cool and slightly bizarre version of the rare jazz classic 'Old Man Mose'. It is both mesmerizing and funny at the same time.

The short opens with a goofy number where the band pokes fun at Lopez's signature song 'Enola', this is followed by an old western number 'Ride Tenderfoot Ride', sung by Johnny Russell and featuring whistling sensation Fred Lowery. Then a jumping instrumental number called 'Swinging With The Goon' (I love that title) and finally 'Old Man Mose'. A must see for hipsters and old timey folks alike.

The very earliest listeners of radio as it became a universal medium heard the words 'Lopez Speaking' and that meant that one of the first musical programs on radio was being broadcast and heard. Vincent Lopez was one of the first if not the first to realize the potential of radio for publicizing his orchestra. As a result he got a jump on all other bands in the Twenties save Paul Whiteman.

By 1939 though his kind of music was taking a back seat to folks like Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and the Dorsey Brothers, but Lopez was still popular enough. This musical short gives you an idea of he was all about.

In fact the 'plot' of this musical short have his musicians revolting from playing their long established sweet theme of Nola and now wanting to get in the groove with some of the latest popular tunes.

Highlighting all of this Lopez's new discovery Betty Hutton who shows early on the raucous style that made her popular in the Forties. No doubt she was going to be a star. She breaks it up with Old Man Mose even flapping her generally unflappable boss.

Nice musical short with a future star in it.

This is one of the later Vitaphone shorts--known as a "Melody Master". These later musical shorts generally were more straight forward and had simpler sets and no real story to tie it all together--just a famous band of the day doing their stuff.

This is the third Vitaphone appearance for Vincent Lopez and his orchestra. And, their first song is a bit of a parody of their popularity as the band sings a song about why they're sick of playing the band's trademark song! In addition, you have two unusual appearances--Betty Hutton (who became a movie star soon after this) as their vocalist and Fred Lowery--a whistling virtuoso! As for Hutton, I wasn't surprised to see her dancing like a person covered in fire ants! Her style was never subtle and she dances just like she acted in films--intensely and with abandon. I am sure she was a very nice person but I also found her singing to be...well...loud and a bit unpleasant.

Oddly, one of the band's songs was a country western song--much like you'd expect to hear in a Gene Autry film. Seeing them dressed up as cowboys for this number was odd but odder still was seeing them smoking--even the vocalist! Overall, not one of the more pleasant shorts--even with the cute opening number. While you might really like it, I just found Hutton's singing and dancing to be distracting and I am glad she later found her niche in films.

Weirdly wacky--Just happened to see this ancient short, as we used to call them, on Turner Classic Movies. I missed the beginning but did manage to catch Betty's rendition of "Old Man Mose", backed by Vincent Lopez and His Orchestra, which has lyrics by LOUIS ARMSTRONG--Talk about cross cultural adventures! Although it is 1939, the jitterbuggy culture that drove GIs and their Janes up the walls a few years later, is already very much in evidence in this zoot-suit-y extravaganza! All she needed was Cab Calloway to back her up--That would have been sublime, a la Minnie the Moocher!

Betty's gown, if you can call it that, looks like a bobby soxer's dirndl gone mad! It is floor length with deep pleats and and odd peasant neckline and she does some Judy Canova/Kay Thompson/Charlotte Greenwood high side kicks in the manner of the 1930's "eccentric" dance style. Her voice is as it remained--wild and woolly! She is more an experience than a talent--but she sure "had it!"

See this antique if TCM ever shows it again! I still wish Judy Garland had completed Annie Get Your Gun instead of Betty but Betty's OOMPH is undeniable!