Public Jitterbug No. 1

A few years before her contract with Paramount and breakthrough to A film stardom, Betty Hutton could be seen in musical shorts like Public Jitterbug Number 1. Her personality comes through even with strange and banal material like this.

With the same zeal the FBI went after the Red Menace J. Edgar Hoover and his forces have determined the Jitterbug must be eradicated so our American way of life be preserved. Toward that end they've assigned special agent Hal LeRoy whose talents include dancing to locate and apprehend the woman known as Public Jitterbug Number 1.

Who of course is Betty Hutton. Aside from some musical numbers, yes this is as dopey as it sounds.

The reason to see this is because it features two songs by an 18 year old Betty Hutton. It is on a DVD release of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers' eight film "Carefree" and on Betty Hutton's Satinsandspurs.com site. There are three other interesting vaudeville acts, so fans of vaudeville might be interested in it for that reason, but I'm a Betty Hutton fan, so the five minutes that she appears makes the film worth seeing for me.

Betty was a superstar for 15 years from circa 1942 to circa 1957(although she continued to entertain for 30 more years). It is great to see her here as Public Jitterbug #1. You can see how talented she is, even at age 18. She steals the picture.

This is one of the most bizarre things you will encounter among the films that don't intend to be strange.

You probably will never see it, so let me describe it. It starts with a shot of the US capitol and switches to a group of men that are some mix of senators and G-men. They are upset that there is nothing on the radio but swing. A national disaster is declared.

The men decide that rather than capture all the offenders, they need to get the top guy. So everyone is sent out to catch "public jitterbug number 1." The scene shifts. Somehow they have decided that a certain club is the location of interest. Our G-men are now disguised as a country-western band! All except one who poses as a tap dancer.

What follows are three episodes. The first is our tapdancer, Hal Le Roy, who really does a phenomenal dance. Very good, with what must be silk pants ruffling. Then there's an episode that has nothing at all to do with the already incredible story: a guest — Chaz Chase — eats everything. And I mean everything: a cigarette lit on both ends, a dozen lit matches, flowers, all the food on the table, his own shirt, a harmonica and a police badge. When the badge comes back up, the G-men are revealed.

The third and last scene is Betty Hutton who admits to being public jitterbug number one. She sings, well enough. And she dances after a fashion. But she is wearing a full, floorlength dress (a sort of folk German affair) so if she is doing something special under there, you can't see it.

Finally, the tap dancer (who has fallen in love with Betty) turns against the group and runs away with her, bullets flying.

Its not enjoyable on its face. The print I saw was very bad. Betty has no charm at all. But it is one of the most mind bending story ideas I have even encountered. "Phantom Empire" from a few years earlier is another. I think there must have been drugs involved.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Public Jitterbug No. 1 (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Warner two-reeler has the government going after the title character so a bunch of G-Men head to a nightclub where they witness a few acts while they try to determine who their bad guy is. The first act is Hal LeRoy who does some tap dancing. Up next is the strange Chaz Chase who eats anything he can get his hands on. There's also Betty Hutton who does a couple dance numbers and sings. Of course, today's viewers are going to mainly interested in this for their chance to see Hutton in her film debut. I can't say that had I seen this short in 1939 that I would have picked her out for stardom but there's no question she has a certain style that the camera captures and her dancing here is quite good. With that said, the main reason to watch this short is for the Chase act because he really does eat everything. He starts off eating his cigarette, all the matches in the book and then he gets to his clothes, flowers and even his napkin. This act is more weird than funny but it's certainly the highlight of the picture. For the most part all of the acts are entertaining enough and they make the film worth sitting through even with the rather silly story.

I accidentally stumbled onto this obscure musical short after watching another Betty Hutton performance on YouTube. The nonsense plot has some agents on Capitol Hill looking for the title character since they deem such a person a menace to society. (Good thing rock 'n' roll hadn't been invented yet!) Many of them disguise themselves as a country-western band (actually Tom Emerson's Hillbilly Sextette), and one becomes a tap dancer (actually Hal LeRoy who has appeared as such in several features and shorts). In the middle of this party is a short person who literally eats lit matches and cigarettes, some flowers, and a part of his own vest! He's Chaz Chase who I reviewed last year in a late silent short he was in where he did the exact same things I just described here. And then there's the real reason anyone would want to watch this today: Ms. Hutton in one of her earliest film appearances. Initially subdued here, she dances up a storm by her second number that brings everything to a rousing finish before the plot abruptly concludes with an almost violent end. Musical and comedy spots make the story filler tolerable and Betty proves here why she was a force to reckon with during much of the '40s. Chase was amusing in his own weird way and LeRoy danced some pretty good steps. All in all, Public Jitterbug Number One is worth a look for fans of these kinds of vintage musical shorts that provided theatregoers with some distraction during the late stages of the Depression.