Larry Clinton and His Orchestra

Larry Clinton and His Orchestra (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Larry Clinton might be forgotten today but apparently he was pretty big back in his day, which is why I always enjoy this musical shorts when they pop up on Turner Classic Movies as it's a nice little history lesson. 'College Humor', 'Stop and Reconsider' and 'Military Madcap' are the three numbers performed by Clinton and his orchestra. Carol Bruce joins the band for a couple songs including the first one 'College Humor', which is a mildly entertaining one in a campy sort of way. The lyrics are quite silly but they're simple enough to be enjoyable. Carol's voice certainly mixes in well with the bad and she's really delightful with her constant smile and dancing. Clinton's music wasn't the greatest I've heard through these old shorts as he isn't quite in the same league as someone like Vincent Lopez.

The similarity in style is striking, especially when LARRY CLINTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA introduces two guest stars who turn out to be dancers, VIRGINIA MARTIN and BOB ROBINSON.

CAROL BRUCE is the girl singer who gets things started with a song duet by Carol and Larry called "College Humor"--something he wrote, not quite as wacky as anything by Kay Kyser's band but simply a corny, catchy tune. Next, another swing number called "Stop and Reconsider" while his audience takes to the dance floor for a novelty number.

Clinton takes his baton again for a final number requested by his audience and the Vitaphone short from Warner Bros. is over.

This is a short from Vitaphone and it can be found on the "Warner Brothers Big Band, Jazz & Swing" DVD collection. This set consists of six DVDs and almost 11 hours of shorts! This is, for the most part, a very straight forward performance by Larry Clinton and his orchestra. Unlike some Vitaphone shorts, there is no story and the set is amazingly sparse. It's as if they didn't put a lot of thought into it and just filmed the band in action. The only way they differed from the norm was Clinton asking the audience which songs of his they wanted, though I am sure this was 100% scripted. I mean, what if none of them knew any of his songs or asked him to play a Tommy Dorsey tune?! You also get to hear Carole Bruce sing a couple nice numbers but overall this is a pretty ordinary short with little to distinguish it.