Bring on the Girls

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy -- sometimes I think that order should be reversed, but then I remember that the straight man gets top billing to the comic for some reason -- look at some acts, including a dog act, people who do a comic piano-and-singer act, and a quintuple act of five girls in fat suits mocking the Dionne Quints. Occasionally they say something about what they are looking at, while a man sitting next to them eats peanuts.

It's basically a short vaudeville show before the feature film. Vaudeville houses were a place that early movies played. Later, as movie palaces arose in the 1910s, the order of precedence reversed. Now live acts accompanied the feature movie. The rise of talkies allowed smaller houses to offer their audiences the same sort of show. Here's an example of the genre.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are in the audience watching a circus performance before the Girls are brought out. There's a monkey riding a miniature horse along with some canine performers. The men should be dressed up as clowns when they are performing with the horse. The song and dance isn't much. The girls as big babies is different. It's not necessarily funny but it's different. I do get the switcheroo from Charlie McCarthy's initial expectation. Normally, I don't see much of Charlie McCarthy. I don't mind their banter but it's not as sharp as I want it to be. All in all, it's interesting to see the dummy. Some of animal tricks are fun. That's it.

A Warner Bros. Vitaphone Short Subject.

Charlie McCarthy wants the vaudeville show to BRING ON THE GIRLS, but there are a few other acts to sit through first.

Short & amusing, this is an enjoyable little film to watch. McCarthy steals the show with his remarks to ever-patient Edgar Bergen. Torelli's Circus, with its trained horses, dogs, monkeys & mule is fun; radio impressionists Jerry Goff & Jack Kerr have not fared too well with time's passage. When they finally arrive, Alice Murphy's Quintuplets (a spoof of the Dionnes) provide pleasurable poundage.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

While Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charley McCarthy are supposedly the stars of this short, essentially "Bring on the Girls" is a variety show with a bit of Bergen and McCarthy tossed in for laughs. And, because the team only make up a bit of the film, I only enjoyed it a bit!

Edgar and Charley have come to some theater to meet some girls who are in the circus show. But before they can see them, they must watch a variety of acts which are presented rapid-fire. Some are animal acts, some are musical acts. Of the two, the animal acts were pretty enjoyable...the singing was a chore to endure. Overall, a very hit or miss short with a bit to like and a bit to lull you to sleep.