L'idylle de la radio

From the start, "Jazz Heaven" veers off the beaten track in agreeable ways. After opening with a lingering shot of the famous Flatiron Building on Manhattan's 23rd Street, followed by another lingering shot of a side street perpendicular to Central Park, Clyde Cook ambles past brownstones wet from a morning hose-down. He pauses to pick up a cat which he carries on his shoulder to his stoop where he pours milk from a bottle outside the door. Only then does the story kick in.

You see, Cook, the night watchman of a piano store, also runs a boarding house with his wife (Blanche Friderici). She is angry with one of the tenants, a struggling young songwriter (John Mack Brown) who has been playing the same melody on the piano all night, disturbing the other tenants. Brown's next door neighbor (Sally O'Neil), spontaneously starts humming loudly along with the melody; he overhears her, prompting a meeting which quickly turns to love. She happens to work for a music publishing firm run by two Jewish men (Joseph Cawthorn and Albert Conti) who seem like caricatures of the Shubert Brothers, a famous team of theatre owners who were known to bicker. They operate out of one of those buildings that gave the Alley its name, filled with cubicles in which songwriters or their song pluggers banged out their new tunes for potential buyers. The publishers spend as much time insulting each other or arranging dates with showgirls as they do picking potential hit songs. Several minutes are taken up with their linguistically fractured arguments, which amount to the insertion of vaudeville routines.

The oft-repeated song in question is "Someone," a charming composition by Oscar Levant (who also gave us "If You Want the Rainbow, You Must Have the Rain" and "Loveable and Sweet," to name just two, in the early "talkie" era). Both Brown and O'Neil sing it at different points in the film.

If you excised all of the shtick (including the cat and milk bottle scene) the actual plot would fill perhaps 45 minutes.

Jazz Heaven (1929)

** (out of 4)

Decent if predictable early talkie has Johnny Mack Brown playing Barry Holmes, a Southern man in New York trying to make a career out of writing music. One day in his boarding house he meets Ruth (Sally O'Neal) who decides to help him and sure enough they fall in love. JAZZ HEAVEN doesn't really feature jazz or heaven for that matter so I'm not sure what the title was for unless RKO was just wanting to use "jazz" to try and get a younger crowd into the theater. Either way, at just 68-minutes this here is pretty straight-forward and while it's not horrible, it's still not good either. This is clearly one of those films that has been forgotten through time for a reason. It's just not bad enough to have a cult following and it's not good enough to be remembered so the only ones who are going to watch it are those film buffs you enjoy early talkies, Johnny Mack Brown fans or those like me who simply like watching these forgotten films. I thought both stars were actually pretty good in their parts and there's no doubt that they did have some chemistry together, which made you want to pull for them. Clyde Cook was also good in his role as the landlord who tries to help the kids. The few music numbers aren't very memorable and there's no question that the film lacks an overall flare that makes it stand out.

but don't let the title fool you. There is nothing of salad days or of the wailing sax in this film. The song that is at the center of the film is a love song that is not jazzy at all. This is a simple tale from a simpler time of a romance that blossoms between a struggling songwriter (Johnny Mack Brown as Barry Holmes) and a singer that works for a music publishing company (Sally O'Neill as Ruth Morgan). The film opens with Barry keeping the entire boarding house up all night as he struggles to finish a song. Next door neighbor Ruth gets up and begins to go through her morning routine when she inadvertently finishes the song for him. He hears her singing the needed ending to his song and brings her into his room to discuss the situation, and shortly thereafter they are hitting it off as well as making great music together - personally and professionally. The problem is - they still don't have any lyrics for the song.

Johnny Mack Brown and Sally O'Neill never really successfully transitioned to talkies partially because Brown was saddled with a deep Southern accent and likewise O'Neill had a very pronounced New Jersey accent. Both had enough of a late silent career that audiences just weren't prepared for how the two really sounded. However, this film makes sport at the accents a bit with Barry mentioning how New York is so alien to him versus his native south and Ruth being the first real friend he's made in the north. The film does go a bit overboard with Ms.O'Neill's accent with all of the "Hey big boy" remarks she makes, but don't let that Helen Kane act fool you, for her character Ruth has a good head on her shoulders, which she badly needs considering the two feuding bosses she has over at the music publishing company. These guys are so busy disliking each other, competing with one another, and playing practical jokes on one another that you wonder why they are partners in the first place and why don't they focus all of this energy on their competition. But I digress.

Just about every plot device in this film ceased to exist in New York or anywhere else decades ago - small music publishers and the sheet music market, mainstream boarding houses, the Ziegfield Follies, and radio stations being so novel and unregulated that they aired people reciting poetry as well as whatever else they might pick up over an open mike that just sounded interesting. But if you are in the mood for a light romantic comedy with very little in the way of serious conflict, this little time capsule fits the bill.

Most interesting scene: When Ruth and her boss visit a nightclub they are treated with a chorus line of girls whose costumes make them look like a cross between replicas of the statue of liberty and perhaps some pagan sun goddess, all the while wielding batons. It really will make you appreciate what Busby Berkeley brought to cinematic choreography just four years later.

Johnny Mack Brown stars as a songwriter who gets thrown out of his room because he plays the piano at night. After his piano is smashed while moving it, his landlord (Clyde Cook)lets him use a piano in the building where he is a night watchman.

Little do they know, however, that they are in a recording studio and the microphone is on. When the music starts, the guys in the control booth shut off the boring speaker and pipe the music through, which causes an avalanche of mail wanting information about the song, "Someone." The search for the songwriter starts a competition between battling business partners (Joseph Cawthorn, Albert Conti) and the radio station owner.

Sally O'Neil gets top billing and plays the girlfriend with that Jersey accent. Henry Armetta is the hapless piano mover, Blanche Frederici plays the landlady. The terrific song, "Someone," was written by Oscar Levant.

"Jazz Heaven" is a very early talking picture and is the sort of old fashioned movie that many might dislike today because the plot and characters are so familiar. However, when it debuted in 1929, it was fresh and interesting...and it is very good if you consider this today.

When the film begins, Barry (Johnny Mack Brown) is banging away at his piano trying to write a hit song. But this up and coming song writer is stuck and needs help. Well, his neighbor, Ruth (Sally O'Neil) hears his music and begins singing along...and they both realize that together they can finish the song and Sally can put it across because she has a much better voice. However, it's not as easy as they think as Sally's VERY stereotypical Jewish bosses are more concerned about sexually harassing her than listening to the song. So how, then, do they get the public to hear it and make the pair a success?

This is a cute little romantic musical. While O'Neil's voice is decent for 1929, this style isn't the easiest to listen to today. However, their scenes together are quite nice and they are a likable screen couple and the film breezy entertainment. Not exactly brilliant but fun.

By the way, Brown soon went on to stardom...but as a movie cowboy, not a romantic leading man.