Office Blues

This cute musical short gives us a look at 19 year-old Ginger Rogers at the dawn of her film career, back when she was still a flapper. Even Ginger's fans may not recognize her in this role, at first: her hair is short and dark with spit-curls, and she speaks and sings in a little girly voice like someone doing a Helen Kane impersonation. (Soon the Flesicher Studio would immortalize the style with their cartoon creation Betty Boop. Even people who've never heard of Helen Kane know Betty Boop when they see her.) Miss Rogers is the center of attention here. Her songs are amusing and catchy, and the short lasts just long enough to serve as a pleasant lead-in to a feature film.

Ginger plays a secretary who works in a stylish Art Deco office where she's expected to type up business letters, but she's too busy pining for her handsome young boss. There's a co-worker who is interested in her, an earnest fellow with a receding hairline, but Ginger won't give him the time of day; it's the boss -- who has a lush, healthy head of hair! -- that she wants. Sitting at her desk she launches into a humorous lament about how her every attempt to get the boss into a romantic mood is rebuffed. The song is full of funny couplets such as: "I start squeezin' up, he starts freezin' up/I hate to urge a man, he's like a clergyman . . . What has he gotten me? Only monotony." Etc., etc. Even at 19, Ginger really had a way with a witty lyric.

Before long, the secretary's day-dreaming turns into a full-scale musical number, or as full-scale as this modest short ever gets, anyway. Ginger sings a second song in which she boldly declares her love for her employer, now backed by a battalion of secretaries dancing on an enormous writing pad. Only in the movies! The choreography is ragged, but that just adds to the fun. The lyrics are full of wordplay mixing business with pleasure, such as a quip about a honeymoon "merger" that certainly would have been censored after the Production Code kicked in a few years later. It all builds to a happy resolution for the secretary and her boss, and a good fade-out gag.

This short is a nice little treat. I was fortunate enough to see it with an audience once, and the first song in particular was greeted with gusts of laughter. Office Blues is a charming novelty that offers Ginger Rogers fans an early sample of her gift for musical comedy.

A cute Paramount short from 1930 which must have been made while Ginger Rogers was appearing in George Gershwin's 'Girl Crazy' on Broadway. Her first five features and several shorts were made in New York and give us an idea of her style on stage during the early part of her career. The squeaky Helen Kane type voice seems to have been something of a fad at the time for girls in their late teens/early twenties (you can hear Thelma Todd using it in the Marx Brothers' 'Horsefeathers', much to Groucho's disdain).

The extremely clever lyrics of Ginger's two songs were written by Yip Harburg, later the lyricist for The Wizard of Oz. These songs make up most of Office Blues and certainly everything of interest in it. This appears to be a vehicle to get Ginger Rogers' name in front of the public, and besides her voice it shows up a camera presence that she possessed from the very beginning (you can see it in 'Night in a Dormitory' which I believe is the earliest film of Ginger). Her stage background must have helped, and we'll never see that early style more clearly than we do in 'Office Blues'.

Office Blues (1930)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fans of Ginger Rogers will certainly want to check out this early short from Paramount. In the film she plays secretary Miss Gravis, a woman in love with her boss but he doesn't even know she exists. Miss Gravis keeps turning down her co-worker and one day she begins to sing a sing, which catches her bosses attention. There's no question that this film was rushed into production and very little money was spent on it. It's also rather obvious that the studio had the songs written first and then "filler" scenes were just shot around them. The story itself is rather weak as the love story isn't ever all that believable but that's okay because the main reason people are going to see this is for Rogers and her voice. Two songs are performed (We Can't Get Along, Dear Sir) and there's no question that the best is the first (Along) as we get to see Ginger solo and there's no doubt that the second film is somewhat hampered by the supporting singers. The majority of the running time has everyone squeezed onto one small set but there's a breakout number towards the end when some extras are added but this musical piece is a lame rip of much better things we've seen from MGM. With that said, fans of Rogers will certainly want to check this out due to her great voice and lively performance.