Happy Days

I refer to one of the cast in the chorus (as far as I know), Harry Lauder. You have flagged him up as the famous Scottish Variety Theatre singer, but that is incorrect. It was not Sir Harry Lauder, who was 60 in 1930.

The Harry Lauder (10 Nov 1902, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland, - 5 Dec 1951, Sydney, Australia, youngest surviving son of Matthew Currie Lauder) who appeared in "Happy Days" was Sir Harry's nephew, and also named Harry.

Harry II, as he liked to be known, was a child musical prodigy with a rich tenor's voice. Following The Great War his famous uncle, Sir Harry Lauder, sent him to Europe for a musical education, including Milan and Paris, where he had vocal training, and he subsequently sang in minor roles in Paris and Britain in Puccini and light opera. He then went to Chicago, U.S.A., where he appeared with the opera company, also undertaking training as a conductor. He then joined the U.S. Gilbert & Sullivan Rep.Co., and toured widely (notably in Richmond, Virginia.), both singing and conducting.

He subsequently conducted Fox Movietone News for 18 months before William Fox suggested he come to Hollywood to work for him there. He then moved to Los Angeles and set up a teaching studio in Glendale. It is unclear what he did for Fox in Hollywood, although he took minor roles in "Happy Days" (1930) (chorus) and several other Fox films, which seem to have gone largely unnoticed.

Seems like every third sound film of 1929-1930 either was a musical or had a lot of musical numbers in it. Last night I finally decided to watch a musical I've had sitting around for over a year. I was very pleasantly surprised by the film! "Happy Days" (1929) advertises itself as a film with over 100 great entertainers. It certainly isn't bad for a Fox produced film. This one has as its main star Marjorie White, but it features Charles E. Evans and Richard Keene, but it also has in it: Will Rogers, George Jessel, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, El Brendel, Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Stuart Erwin, James J. Corbett (yes, the boxer!), William Collier, Sr., Rex Bell, Walter Catlett, and I'm not finished. If you look in the chorus line, there's Betty Grable. Oh, did I mention Dixie Lee (at this time helping promote the career of her husband, Bing Crosby), Nick Stuart, Frank Albertson, 'Whispering' Jack Smith, Ann Pennington, J. Farrell MacDonald, Lew Brice, Sharon Lynn, Tom Patricola, Tom Kennedy, Lucien Littlefield, and I'm tired of writing these names...

Show actually is not just a revue, but revolves around a story. White's father, Charles E. Evans is captain of a Show Boat. It's going broke and he can't pay the piper. She decides she's going to New York to the night clubs and round up all the performers who had their beginnings with her pop on the boat and bring them back to the boat for a show to save the boat and her pop. Of course she only needs to go to one night club - at least it looks that way in the movie - and everybody wants to do his or her bit. It evidently works, because when the film ends, it's after the last number, with no thank yous, good byes, or "It's a success!". It just ends.

Best number by far is the Ann Pennington dance "Snake Hips", also with Sharon Lynn, followed by the Dixie Lee rendition of "Crazy Feet". Farrell and Gaynor sing a song that probably should have remained unsung. McLaglen and Lowe do a routine that jokes about their Quirt and Flagg routines in their soldier movies, though it never mentions Quirt and Flagg, only McLaglen and Lowe. Lots of other numbers and routines. Only one that was just plain stupid, and that was El Brendel. I know, some just love the guy. Oh, well, to each his/her own.

Highly recommended for those interested in the early sound musicals. This is basically Fox's answer to all the revues done in those first couple of years by the different studios. It's quite good. 80 minutes or just a few more. It won't grate if you know what you're getting into. For those only looking for "Singin' in the Rain" or "Cabaret", stay away or sit back and learn. If you look at the viewer ratings on the IMDb, they range from 1 star to 9. Most are 7 or 8, so most have enjoyed it; but there are certainly exceptions. For the record, the sound and the photography are spot on, not so much the creaky early stuff. Some of the songs aren't perfect in any sense by modern standards sound-wise, but for the day are quite decent. Much of the revue style music is straight on camera shots, but there are a few that seem precursors to Busby Berkeley. This is also the second film released in 70mm wide screen. It's the debut films of both Marjorie White and Betty Grable.

Lavish story-revue from 1929, originally filmed in a widescreen process called Grandeur, puts most of Fox's roster in a minstrel show format; there's a plot surrounding it, but it's forgotten after the first half hour or so. You have to endure some badly dated acts, including the insufferable El Brendel and the sappy Janet Gaynor (she doesn't sing, she coos) and Charles Farrell (body of Adonis, voice of a fifth grader), but along the way you do get some good stuff, and an entertaining look at what was considered top-notch diversion around the time the stock market was crashing. Marjorie White does some hot scat singing and steps lightly; Ann Pennington and Dixie Lee dance up a storm; Victor McGlaglen and Edmund Lowe do a buddy number (McLaglen can actually sing, Lowe can't); the boxing champ James J. Corbett is a personable interlocutor; Will Rogers, Warner Baxter, and George Jessel do cameos; and poor old Charles Evans' show boat gets saved. The chorus girls are beefy and klutzy (Betty Grable's in there somewhere), the production design's clever, and there's an odd lighting effect that turns actors from blackface to white with the flick of a light switch. Heaven knows you couldn't get away with this stuff today, but the songs are catchy, there's some fine dancing, and among the large roster of early talkie musicals, this one's fairly diverting.

Pleasant enough early musical from 1930. Catchy but unfamiliar songs and well staged musical numbers. As is usual with these revues, many of the studio's contract players appear, mostly playing themselves. However, their two top stars, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, have a number of their own. There is a storyline of sorts but this is only at the beginning, and, from about a third of the way through, the film is "All Dancing, All Singing and All Pretty Dreadful Jokes!!". There is no cast list but stars like Warner Baxter and Will Rogers are easily recognisable. Best part of the film is the closing number in which most stars and most of the film's songs are seen and heard again. Best performance is by Marjorie White - although she has about the only acting part in it. No Technicolour sequences but I believe the film was originally shot in some wide screen process. If you like early musicals, this one is, for the most part, fair. But see it if you can as it has it's moments.

Correction. A cast list does appear just before the start of the musical numbers. I obviously missed this during the first viewing!

When the showboat she performs on is threatened with repossession, Marjorie heads to New York where she persuades all the stars there -- which seems to be the list of Fox contract players -- to perform in a minstrel show to lift the mortgage.

Yes, much of it is in blackface. Performers in solo and specialty numbers have the make-up removed, and the last twenty minutes or so is performed without the hated shoe polish. This is a good one, not for the number in which Edmund Lowe and Victor Mclaglen sing about how they really like each other, or for Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor singing the forgettable "We'll Build A World Of Our Own." But Broadway star Charles MacFarlane has a fine singing voice; Tom Patricola does a dynamite eccentric dance; and to watch Ann Pennington and Sharon Lynne dance "Snake Hips" in very revealing costumes is a treat.

This was the second movie shot in Fox's Grandeur Process, an early 70mm format. Unhappily, the copies at are available are in standard format and rather blurry. But there are some surprising techniques, like a Busby Berkeley shot and extended sequence of single dancers in full body length, well before these techniques became standard.

It's one of those movies that the major studios made in this brief period, showing off their stars in song and dance, whether they could sing, dance or not. Given the inherently mixed bag nature of the genre, this is a pretty good example of the revue format.