Sweet Kitty Bellairs

I want to thank Richard Barrios for praising this little gem in his definitive book "A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film." Otherwise I'd never have known about "Sweet Kitty Bellairs." Even if I had I might not have bothered. A 1930 screen operetta based on a 1903 play set in 18th century England--doesn't sound very enticing, does it? But "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" is genuinely sweet: an exquisitely stylized confection made by people well aware of the material's absurdity and delighted by its artificiality. Far from being a stuffy, sexless period piece, this is a saucy and buoyant pre-code escapade, free of cloying sentiment and reveling in the absurdities of powdered-wig codes of honor and sexual propriety.

It's short and sweet too. Director Alfred E. Green keeps the story galloping for 63 minutes (with tracking shots of highwaymen singing on horseback). Considering the date, this is fluid and lively film-making, not at all stagy. The witty songs move the story along and don't try to be showstoppers. The lead actors (Claudia Dell, Walter Pidgeon, and baritone Perry Askam) sparkle with irony, but Ernest Torrence walks away with the film. Playing a cloddish jealous husband, he's delighted by the role's buffoonery, sputtering into falsetto at the ends of his lines. And as a former member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, he knows how to sing! Alas, by the time "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" was released the public had been so glutted with bad musicals that it neglected the good ones. Hence the obscurity of this Bonbon of a movie.

Sweet Kitty Bellairs is a great example of what I maintained in those early days of sound. All the studios big and small were scrambling to purchase all kinds of plays, anything with dialog so that the players could talk. Especially the new ones with stage training to replace the pantomimists of silent days.

In the case of Sweet Kitty Bellairs this was an old chestnut of a British Regency comedy of manners where it was decided to put music to it. Nothing terribly distinguished but serviceable for the plot. And no one seems to be taking credit. Note five different people in the credits are listed, but not one of those five says 'music by' or lyrics by'. I'm sure there's a story.

This film plays like a romance novel set to music with a dashing highwayman who is also an aristocrat, a shy poet, and a woman of a scandalous reputation. Add to that some Regency Era fops and a dirty old lord with gout and you've got Sweet Kitty Bellairs.

The film was old fashioned when it was released but it is an interesting antique and reflective of what producer David Belasco gave to the public in his highlight days during the gaslight era before World War I.

As Belasco was still alive when this came out, I wonder what he thought of it?

Altogether lavish, silly, trite and dull...this is the sort of thing that is handled best by Sheridan, Congreve and later by Oscar Wilde. The script lacks the charm and wit of those masters to put it over. Without that it's only very dull trifle, looking good but tasting terrible. The opening chorus is overladen, cumbersome and sluggish like most of the music and acting. Labored and graceless.

On the plus side, the sets and costumes are lavish and great fun can be had in seeing a very young Walter Pidgeon in knee britches and periwig warbling his love song, Claudia Dell warbling hers, and then the two of them intertwining their separate songs in a resulting duet. For me, that was the high and sole enjoyable point of this unfortunate enterprise.

Way too heavy on the violin and musical numbers. This one would have benefited from a spiffing up of the script. Claudia Dell, in one of her earlier starring roles is the charming, flirtatious Kitty Bellairs, in this LONG period piece. They keep breaking out in song, but more of a story would have made it a better film. The one bright spot here is Walter Pidgeon, from such awesome films as Mrs. Miniver, Forbidden Planet, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and SO many others. I won't talk about the story here, because my god, it goes on and on. All quite inane. Co-stars Ernest Torrance, who had been around hollywood for YEARS. This seems to be based on a novel by Egerton and Agnes Castle (Egerton ? must be a french name, as he was born in france). Directed by Alfred Green, who had started out in silents. While he didn't receive an oscar as director, several of his film stars DID receive oscars for their performance. At least it's all over in 63 minutes, a Warner Brothers shortie. Skip this one, unless you are a fan of the actors involved. Sound and picture quality not good in the version i saw, but I guess for history's sake, we're lucky to still have it around.

In the very early 1930s, operettas were quite popular. Films like "The Rogue Song" and "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" were just a couple such movies and less than a decade later the style was resurrected with the Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy films. However, by the mid-1940s the genre was just about dead due to changing tastes and when seen today the pictures come off as very strange and old fashioned. Based on what I've seen, I can understand why they are no longer popular.

When "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" begins, a group of rich 18th century folks are heading to the spa town of Bath for a holiday. However, their carriage is waylaid by bandits and the cheeky masked leader decides that instead of stealing all their valuables that he'd just take a kiss from Kitty. While she protests, it's pretty obvious to tell that she is quite taken by this stranger. And, what's also obvious is that the nice man she later meets at the spa is actually the bandit dressed in the fine clothes of a gentleman. What will come of this? See the film (or, better yet, don't).

This film was creaky with age and left me very, very bored. Much of the music just put me to sleep but the bad acting made it even worse. Particularly bad was Ernest Torrence who just didn't seem to know how to deliver his lines...though he would improve in later films. Perhaps he just wasn't used to sound films. All I know is that the movie left me very cold and this sort of silly fluff just didn't appeal to me. Far less well made and interesting than a MacDonald/Eddy film.