Sunday Night at the Trocadero

A vintage short from the 1930's, Sunday Night at the Trocadero is far from anything special. A typical short musical / comedy with no big stars to the cast. A handful of 30's eye candy is showcased at the fictional dinning club called the Trocadero. A group of well to do producers and self made men have dinner and share conversation as the room around them is alive. A group of girls sing and dance throughout the hall to gain attention. A struggling bell boy / wanna-be actor performs every five minutes to get hired on the Big Producer's next movie. Everyone in the cast seems to be working for food, let alone a pay check. For 21 minutes, the short provides beautiful musical numbers and quick "no so funny" one liners that really isn't worth watching for an audience member in the 21st century. To appreciate this movie, you need to be from the generation or know one of the actors in the film. All in all, an interesting vintage short that is like most short musicals of its time. Quick, simple, and worth the price of admission for its time, which was 10 cents.

Here's one of those "Hollywood stars" shorts. While some studios had specialty series like this -- particularly Columbia with its "Screen Snapshots", most studios dabbled, and when they dabbled in the 1930s, they called Lou Lewyn. He had cut his teeth on "Screen Snapshots", followed through with "The Voice of Hollywood" for Tiffany-Stahl, and then Paramount's "Hollywood on Parade." After that he went independent, with stars and aspiring players from every studio and rank.... and a couple of people of particular interest to fans of old movies, like Gaylord Carter, for decades the dean of silent film organists.

Anyway, it's some good music, some nice production numbers, and some stars in mufti. See if you recognize Groucho Marx without his painted-on eyebrows and mustache.

Kind of hokey, but some fun songs and dance numbers in here. George Hamilton is the emcee, and we start off with "Cuban Pete". The picture quality is quite good, but the sound is TERRIBLE... muted.. it stops and starts. some silly bits in between the dance numbers. Lots of big stars from the day popping up here and there... it was 1937, after all. "Anything but Love, Baby" by Connee Boswell, which is a VERY different version than we hear in ""Bringing up Baby". and some real silly, goofy bits, which may have been amusing at the time, but are pretty dated at this point. Fun to see some big names like Groucho Marx, Robert Benchley, Bert Wheeler, Eric Blore, and more. This one has some fun, old time big stars, but it's almost painful to sit through, with the poor sound quality. I would have turned it off, but I did want to see the film that came on after this. Shown in-between films on Turner Classic Movies. Directed by George Sidney, who had directed some biggies. Viva Las Vegas with Elvis, Scaramouche, Bye Bye Birdie, and Harvey Girls. interesting, for history's sake.

"Reginald Denny and Galaxy of Stars" is how this is billed in the beginning credits.

Interesting at first to see real-life footage of people at a nightclub, complete with cigarette girls, dress and hairstyles of the period. Then it goes into a corny story of a lowly poor usher-type guy who is ready to break into the talent show business....and he's terrible.

Along the way we get some lame comedic acts and some orchestra numbers, some solo singing efforts, that are "fair to good." Personally, I liked the up-tempo numbers better, like the finale with The Brian Sisters.

It was cool to see stars like Groucho Marx (sans mustache) in the audience, along with Frank Morgan, Robert Benchley, Frank McHugh and others.

The worst part of this was the sound quality. I saw this on a Marx Brothers DVD (" Night At The Opera") in which the movie and the other features all came through sharp and clear....but not in this short. I couldn't decipher about half the dialog, which was very annoying.

In the 1930s, MGM made quite a few short films designed to promote their B-list actors. Ostensibly, the film is set at some sort of nightclub and these lesser known actors and actresses supposedly hang out there and the cameras catch them 'as they really are'...or, at least as the publicity department WANTS them to be perceived. However, unlike many of them, this one is in black & white and there really are very few of the bigger stars of the day (whereas the other films usually had a handful of A-listers in addition to the up and coming B and C-listers). The biggest stars you see in this one are Groucho Marx, Robert Benchley, Chester Morris and Frank Morgan. In addition, like "Starlit Days at the Lido", the leading man in this one is Reginald Denny--who introduces some of the acts.

In addition to the mostly uninteresting cameos, you've got some nightclub performers--several of which really stink (especially the guy who was doing impersonations) or are only passably entertaining...at best. Oddly, there also is a bizarro fashion show featuring some of the strangest outfits I have ever seen! It all comes off as weird...and not especially entertaining. Only of interest to folks who want to see the stars...even if it is all staged.

By the way, the sound quality of this short is rather poor...making there one more reason not to watch.