Gus Arnheim and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra

In the early days of sound Gus Arnheim had the great good fortune to be the leader of the house band at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles. It was the place where just about everyone who was anyone in Hollywood gathered. So he was in the immediate vicinity when Warner Brothers . Arnheim played the piano and led the band. He also composed a few songs and his best known composition is Sweet And Lovely. Recorded by both Russ Columbo and Bing Crosby two of the artists who appeared with Arnheim at the Grove.

Columbo who played the violin also sings as part of a trio in this film. On Tiger Rag he handles a mean passage of dixieland type play. In his career as a crooner he never did jazz type stuff like he does here.

This short subject is a nice remembrance of Gus Arnheim and the Cocoanut Grove.

Gus Arnhein and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra (1928)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Early Vitaphone/Warner short has, as the title suggests, Gus Arnheim and his orchestra doing four numbers including Irving Berlin's I Can't Do Without You. As with many of these early musical shorts, this one here really doesn't feature too much "direction" or style as the camera is pretty much set up in front of the stage where the musicians are and they play. That's pretty much it with the exception of a handful of edits where the filmmaker gives us a close-up of one of the instrument playing. As you'd expect, this type of film is going to have a very limited appeal so it's mainly for those who enjoy this era of music or film buffs you want to check out all the early talking pictures. I was a little surprised to see how good the music sounded as many of these early sound films suffer from poor audio. Everything was quite crisp sounding and just by listening you'd never expect this to have come out so early in the game. The four numbers are certainly above average with I Can't Do Without You really stealing the picture.

Back in the 20s and 30s, Vitaphone experimented with sound films through their musical shorts. Though, as few theaters in 1928 were equipped for sound, I did wonder as I watched this just how many folks saw it when it was first released. I do agree with another review I just read for this short in particular--it's probably got very limited appeal today. I personally love the old Vitaphone shorts and could watch them all--but realize that early talkies don't necessarily work well today as they are a bit dated. However, the Turner restoration is virtually perfect--with great sound and a very nice picture--allowing lovers of old-time music to enjoy as well as to preserve a copy for posterity. And, despite limited appeal, this took a lot of work--cleaning up the copies as well as matching up sound discs with the films--as they were recorded separately.

As for "Gus Arnhein and His Coconut Grove Orchestra", this is an agreeable short--and one of the earlier Vitaphone released. While the band is just about totally forgotten today, they had a nice sound and are a nice representative of the era. And, like most Vitaphone films of the day, the camera is mostly stationary and there are no fancy effects--just a straight recording of the act--which included several nice songs. Worth seeing.