Movie Time: "Varsity Show" (1937)

Another movie of the older variety I just watched is "Varsity Show" from Warner Brothers in 1937.

I'm kinda fascinated by the college musical genre that was popular during the 1930s, things like "College Humor" (1933), "Pigskin Parade" (1936), "College Swing" (1938), etc.

"Varsity Show" is another in that line and it's enjoyable if you like that sort of thing, but it has a few things of interest to separate it from the pack a bit.

The star is Dick Powell, who plays an alumnus of the fictional Winfield College who's now a Broadway producer and is called upon current students to help them with the... Varsity Show!

Dick Powell was about 32 when the movie was filmed and he was youthful looking, but I think it was smart not to cast him as a current college student, which would have been the case just a couple of years earlier.

He's totally convincing in this movie and I can't imagine that anyone in 1937 would have thought that he'd be a hard-boiled, film noir type actor within a decade!

Powell's sidekick in "Varsity Show" is Ted Healy, who's best (only?) remembered these days as the star comedian to whom the Three Stooges were the stooges. He seems to be largely dismissed as a footnote of entertainment history, but was actually a talented comedian who could toss off a cynical one liner with the best of them. 

Second-billed to Dick Powell, though, was bandleader Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Waring plays a music professor at the college and is pretty good for a non-actor, as those things go.

Members of the Pennsylvanians aggregation appear as students at the college and that's where things really get interesting...

Rosemary (above right) and Priscilla Lane had been featured singers with Fred Waring and came to Hollywood to make this movie. They have featured parts and do quite well, which led to each appearing in several subsequent movies for Warner Brothers, including the "Four Daughters" series with older sister Lola Lane and not-actual-sister Gale Page.

Of all the main players, Priscilla seems the most age-appropriate to play a college student and she was about 21-22 at the time. She's adorable!

Rosemary was a little older, so she got to be Dick Powell's romantic interest!

The other member of the Pennsylvanians to get a contract from Warner Brothers was Johnny "Scat" Davis, who's kind of a bizarre 1930s caricature of a singing, trumpet-playing swing musician. You can see him as the rather square Fred Waring's concession to the swing movement. Everything about Davis is exaggerated but he's sure enthusiastic!

Fred Waring always seemed to have a lot of siblings in his group, including his own brother Tom, and in additional to the Lane Sisters, he also featured the McFarland Twins who were both saxophone players.

They both appear in "Varsity Show," but only George (and not Arthur) is credited for some reason. They have the look of 1930s college students!

The McFarlands later had their own band, and the idea of identical twin bandleaders is fun!

A longtime member of the Fred Waring band was drummer Poley McClintock, who also supplied a wacky Popeye-type voice. He was too old in 1937 to be a college student, so they explained it away by Dick Powell's character remarking that Poley was junior when he (Powell) was a freshman. Apparently Poley could never pass Latin!

Left to right: Carole Landis, Sterling Holloway, Priscilla Lane, Lee Dixon, Rosemary Lane, Dick Powell, Mabel Todd, Ted Healy.

The other main students are played by non-Waring actors Sterling Holloway, Mabel Todd and Lee Dixon, who vaguely seem college-age.

A then 18 year old Carole Landis also pops up, dancing with Holloway (of all people!) in the finale.

The outstanding dance team Buck & Bubbles appear in the stereotypical role of janitors, but they get to show off their skills a couple of times. John Bubbles in particular is brilliant!

So, I think the cast is interesting, but that may not even be the most interesting thing about the movie.

The tantalizing thing is that "Varsity Show" was originally about 120 minutes when released in 1937. Then it was re-released in the 1940s, but cut by about 40 minutes. But no one knows what happened to those 40 minutes and the only known print available is a mere 80 minutes!

So, what was cut? I'm guessing a lot of musical numbers, as some songs that were listed in the credits do not appear in this print and others seem to be reprised during the finale, but had probably been featured earlier in the film.

What makes me wonder the most, though, is why (as mentioned) George McFarland is credited (as "Hap") and Arthur is not. Was there a cut scene in which George had more dialogue or something and someone actually called him Hap?

Note: this George McFarland is definitely not George "Spanky" McFarland of "Our Gang" fame, so don't worry that somehow "Varsity Show" featured a lost Spanky appearance!

Does anyone care enough about "Varsity Show" these days to track down and release a complete print? We can only hope!

What's left is fun, though, if you like that sort of thing or any of the featured players.

The finale was staged by Busby Berkeley and includes a fun salute to other actual colleges:

Of course, the spectacle could never fit on an actual theater stage, but that's also part of the fun!

Bonus 78 - "Babe" (1948)!

Still in 1948 but back to Babe Ruth, here's the song "Babe" as recorded by the Ferko String Band on Palda Records:

Pretty fun!

The song was published in 1947, which was the same year as the famous Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium but I'm not sure if the song has a direct tie-in.

This might also be the only recording of the song, as it wouldn't see to be likely material for the big record labels to get in on.

For the flipside, the Ferko String Band kept the baseball theme going with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game":

I love "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," but this version doesn't grab me. I don't know of it's just this arrangement or if the song isn't suited to the whole Mummers type thing.

"Jingle Bells" worked for them, though!

"Cash Box" gave the record a really good review in its May 15, 1948 issue:

It's not that good, is it?

Bonus Bendix!

For more 1948 William Bendix baseball-themed old time radio, here's an episode of "The Life of Riley" from May 1, 1948:

Lots of fun!

More "The Babe Ruth Story"

On the subject of 1948's "The Babe Ruth Story," here's William Bendix starring in a radio adaptation of the movie on "The Screen Guild Players" broadcast of October 1, 1948:

That's a lot of fun! Probably better than the movie!

 And I know I'm always saying that you have to enjoy things in their proper historical context, but over the top cigarette commercials do make me shake my head!

And, besides, didn't Bendix smoke Chesterfields rather than camels?

Movie Time: "The Babe Ruth Story" (1948)

For older movies, we left off with "The Story of Mankind," known as a flop and baseball movies with the biography "The Pride of the Yankees."

Bringing both of these themes together, we hit on 1948's "The Babe Ruth Story" starring William Bendix as the great slugger.

Now, I'm not going to say it's a good movie, but I think it's better than its reputation, mainly because it's misunderstood.

A "problem" I see with most movies that old is that modern audiences try to view it through a modern lens, which doesn't always work. 

A 1940s biography of a beloved public feature is not going to show the subject in a negative light, especially if it's made with the cooperation of the subject (who was gravely ill at the time).

Babe Ruth had plenty of issues, but other than him acting like a big kid, you won't see any of them here.

And, hey, was Lou Gehrig as perfect as he was portrayed in "The Pride of the Yankees" anyway?

Sports movies also sometimes have a double whammy in that baseball fans might watch a movie like this but very few, if any, other movies from the 1940s, so they really have no context.

I also come across modern audiences slamming "The Babe Ruth Story" for the casting of William Bendix, based solely on him (a few years later) starring in "The Life of Riley" TV series, oblivious to the fact that he was a versatile Academy Award nominated actor who happened also to be good at comedy.

It's cute and convenient to say it's an insult to the Babe to have him played by a sitcom actor, but in 1948 he was a film actor who had a side hustle on a popular radio show.

I actually think Bill Bendix does a good job with what he's given to work with and I felt like I was watching Babe Ruth at times.

Claire Trevor is good as Babe's wife (really his second, but the movies ignores his first!) and Charles Bickford provides some much needed gravitas as Brother Matthias, Babe's mentor.

The problem with the movie is really the script, which is pure hagiography (to dig out a fifty cent word!).

The trailer tells you about all you need to know:

So, it's not a good movie on the whole, but it's not the worst thing ever and if you're a fan of baseball, old movies and/or Bill Bendix, it's a fun watch.

But "Kill the Umpire" is way better!

 

Movie Time: "The Lost City" (2022)

I recently watched another 2022 movie, "The Lost City" starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum.

It was a pretty entertaining flick!

It's definitely evocative of  1984's "Romancing the Stone," which this movie seems to realize, but I wouldn't say it's a remake.

It's really more of a comedy than anything, but since the comedy is actually funny, that's a good thing!

I wouldn't have thought to pair Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, but they have really good chemistry.

And Sandra Bullock still looks great!

I usually don't like to watch the trailer for newer releases before seeing the movie, as I think they usually give too much away. I was definitely glad I didn't watch the trailer for "The Lost City" first, as it does spoil some surprises, including a wacky turn by a big star that I didn't even know was in the movie!

Some good entertainment, and who can't use that these days?

Movie Time: "The Story of Mankind" (1957)

I had mentioned when discussing "The Big Store" (1940) that it was not the Marx Brothers' last movie, but they only made a couple after that.

The last movie that all three of the core brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo) appear in is the 1957 oddity "The Story of Mankind."

I'm a huge Marx Brothers fan, but had never seen "The Story of Mankind" before it popped up on TCM recently.

I wasn't avoiding the movie, but I never sought it out, as I knew that the brothers only made brief appearances and did not work together at all. And the movie has a really bad reputation!

But in this day and age of being able to watch something by hitting a couple of buttons on a service you're already paying for, what can you lose?

Well, I lost about 100 minutes of my life that I can't get back, but I can now say I've seen every Marx Brothers movie, so I came out ahead.

"The Story of Mankind" is pretty bad, though, and deserves it's reputation a bomb. There are worse movies to be sure, but this is the type that has a lot of talent involved and some sort of ambition, but is just a mess.

I'll point out that I'm not a "hate watcher" in that I don't revel in the badness of things, but I can see those who do pursue such activities having a field day with this one!

The basic premise of having Ronald Colman (in his last movie role) as "The Spirit of Man" vs. Vincent Price as "Mr. Scratch" at a celestial tribunal headed by Cedric Hardwick is actually solid, but the snippets of history each side uses are questionable at best!

So, how do the Marx Brothers fit in and how do they fare?

That's Groucho's wife, Eden Hartford, and she's stunning!

Well, Groucho portrays Peter Minuit, the Dutch colonial governor known for purchasing Manhattan for some trinkets. That's an odd choice by Mr. Scratch to illustrate that mankind is evil, but whatever.

Groucho is funny (How can he not be?) and gets off some snappy anachronistic one-liners, but it's odd.

Harpo is Sir Isaac Newton who is hit on the head by the apple while playing the harp (Newton is playing the harp, not the apple!). Harpo is also amusing as he gets to make some fun facial reactions.

That's another odd choice, this one by the Spirit to illustrate the merits of mankind. What's strange, though, is that the Spirit says something like the story may be true or not. But they're going back through time to witness actual historical events, so wouldn't that apple business have actually happened within the context of the movie?

In any event, Chico is wasted in the role of a monk to whom Christopher Columbus explains his theory about the world being round. I guess that's because part of Chico's shtick was the exaggerated Italian accent, but they don't give him any funny dialogue at all. He just says, "Could be" a few times.

They could have had Chico portray a classical composer and had him play the piano or something else to show off his talents.

So, the bottom line is that "The Story of Mankind" should be seen by Marx Brothers completists and can be "enjoyed" by bad movie buffs.

Everyone else should stay away! 

1940s Christmas Playlist Housekeeping - Part 3!

The biggest leftover from my 1940s Christmas Playlist is getting to listen to Jimmy Atkins's recording of Vaughn Horton's "An Old Christmas Card."

I'm still waiting, but as I continue to search for it, I do come across the occasional interesting thing.

For example, here he is as Jim Atkins with the Pinetoppers on Coral Records in 1953:

I'm partial to songs with "Johnny" in the title and that's a very snappy version of the song!

The writer of "Juke Joint Johnny," Lattie Moore, had first recorded the song on the small Speed label in 1953:

That's really cool!

I see that record described as Rockabilly fairly often, sometimes even said to be the first Rockabilly record ever!

I don't think it's really Rockabilly, though. I'd say it's more Hillbilly Boogie, but it's certainly close to Rockabilly and shows how one branch of Country music was heading that way.

I was first familiar with "Juke Joint Johnny" from Red Sovine's 1957 recording on Decca:

That record is also often categorized as Rockabilly, but I don't think it quite is, despite the hot guitar from ace session player Grady Martin.

I mostly remember Red Sovine from a tacky late-1970s TV commercial for a compilation of his hits - which seemed to be mostly maudlin truck-driving songs - in the wake of the infamous Slim Whitman commercial!

Good to know Red had some pep 20-ish years before!

The song finally crossed over into more solid Rockabilly territory (although the label says it's country and western) when Lattie Moore changed the title (but not the rest of the lyrics) to "Juke Box Johnnie" and recorded it in 1956 for ARC, another small label:

Juke box definitely sounds more 1950s than juke joint, but I've never liked the "ie" spelling of Johnny!

Getting back to juke joints, interestingly enough, Vaughn Horton co-wrote a song called "Juke Joint Mama with singer Denver Darling who recorded the song for Decca in 1945:

Sounds good!

Then Jimmy Swan recorded a version in 1952 for the small Trumpet label:

Solid honky tonk that no one should say is Rockabilly!

So, all of this is based on the premise that Jimmy Atkins is also Jim Atkins. And he might be the older half-brother of guitar great Chet Atkins after all - but I have no solid evidence.

That's another rabbit hole for another day!

1940s Christmas Playlist Housekeeping - Part 2!

Now we tend to a bit of housekeeping on the song "(It's Gonna Be a) Lonely Christmas," the 1948 hit by The Orioles.

I had mentioned that I could only find one other version of the song, which appeared to be a 1958 album track by tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate (shown at top of page).

So, I was excited to come across this 1951 record by the Cedric Wallace orchestra on the Derby label:

The label says it features Jimmy Holmes on tenor sax.

My initial thought was that it sounded a lot like the Buddy Tate recording, then I realized, it is the Buddy Tate recording! Or, more properly, the Buddy Tate recording is the Cedric Wallace recording!

Let's hear the flipside of the Cedric Wallace record, which is "White Christmas":

So, can we do any untangling?

Well, the Cedric Wallace record is a "real" release, reviewed in the December 1, 1951 issue of "Cash Box" and all:

Love the show biz lingo!

Now, I do realize that small, independent labels like Derby would record a number of tracks, then disappear after a while and the recordings would be somewhat up for grabs and rereleased on other labels, often in a very budget-minded context. (See the Hollywood label releases.)

This budget label (Halo? Who are they?) credited to Buddy Tate did trick me, which was the intention in 1958:

I just figured that the album featured new recordings by Buddy Tate and it was called "Rock and Rollers Orchestra."

Closer inspection shows that one side is by Buddy Tate and the other by the "Rock and Rollers Orchestra" and that the album doesn't really have a title. And now we know that the tracks attributed to Buddy Tate (including the oddly retitled "Snowy White Christmas" are recycled!

I feel like I should have known better, as these budget LPs would include a few tracks by a "name" artist (so they could put their name in big letters on the cover) from various sources, with the rest of the album filled out by, well, filler.

Here's one of the tracks by the "Rock and Rollers Orchestra":

Despite the song being titled "Let's Rock and Roll," this sounds to me like an older r 'n' b track. Not bad, but not rock and roll!

So, now the question is whether "Lonely Christmas" and "(Snowy) White Christmas" are Buddy Tate tracks at all. And the answer is: I don't really know!

I do know that Cedric Wallace was a real person. He was a very talented bassist who cut several sides with Fats Waller in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He later did producing and session work, including for the Derby label.

The real question is who is the "Jimmy Holmes" credited with the tenor sax solos?

I can't find any references anywhere else to a sax player by that name.

There was a Jimmy Holmes in the music business around that time, but he was a singer, a member of the version of The Ink Spots led by original member Charlie Fuqua with three new members - The Ink Spots story is complicated!

This Jimmy was certainly an accomplished singer, but most likely not so skilled on the tenor sax, so I don't think it's the same guy.

Was it maybe Buddy Tate using a pseudonym? Could be. He actually did record for Derby records, including this 1952 release, both sides of which pop up on the Halo album:

That's pretty solid!

Count Basie's band in 1940, including Buddy Tate (far left in sax section) and fellow tenor man Lester Young (at far right).

Buddy Tate was definitely a real guy, having a long career, including playing with the great Count Basie band from the late 1930s (he replaced the late, great Herschel Evans) until the late 1940s. 

So, did Buddy play the tenor sax on the Cedric Wallace record? Or more to the point, did Halo Records know or care?

At this point we've accounted for four of the Buddy Tate tracks on the LP, but I can't determine the origin of the other two. Maybe someday!

Let's go a bit further down the budget label rabbit hole with this album on the Allegro label:

Yes, the same stock cover images were used over and over on budget LPs!

This one pairs the same Buddy Tate-credited tracks with some from another tenor sax player, Don Byas!

In an unusual bit of provenance, the cover indicates that the Byas tracks are from a 1945 all-star session. And in a rare bit of truth in advertising, that's quite a lineup!

But a look at the original 1945 releases of those songs on Jamboree Records shows that info was right on the label, so they just carried it over!

Let's listen to this coupling of a couple of standards:

Sounds good!

The moral of the story is that we'll probably never know who Jimmy Holmes was!

1940s Christmas Playlist Housekeeping - Part 1!

                                               

Since I posted my 1940s Christmas Playlist last December, I've come across a couple of tidbits to add to some of the songs. So, it's a bit of housekeeping, if you will.

First up is "Merry Christmas Polka" from 1949.

Among the versions I included was Lawrence Welk's from a 1955 Mercury Records release and I wondered why the label indicated that it was an instrumental when it very clearly contains a vocal.

Well, some further research indicates that was a reissue of a recording from 1949 when the song was published:

And if we look at that label, it credits the vocal to Bob "Tex" Cromer, so that mystery solved!

The other mystery that's still unsolved is why the reissue label says it's an instrumental. I can understand if they didn't want to credit Mr. Cromer, as he was apparently no longer with the band, but still...

I do feel like I should have known that the Welk recording was originally from 1949, but I'll blame it on the 1949 label spelling the song as "Merry Xmas Polka!"

It's odd as well that the original label does not show the songwriting credits, whereas the reissue did.

In any event, Bob "Tex" sang with Lawrence Welk for a couple of years and among the songs he recorded was a cover of the big Tex Williams hit "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette)" on Decca Records in 1947:

Good thing his nickname was Tex so they didn't have to change the lyric!

That's actually not a bad version of the song, but nobody was as good as Tex Williams at the talking blues. (We had heard Tex's original and a square dance version by Fenton "Jonesy" jones here.)

Another label oddity is the Lawrence Welk record credits Tex Williams's co-writer as "Lee Travis" when it was actually the great singer/songwriter/guitarist Merle Travis! What's up with Lawrence Welk and wacky labels?

Tex Williams had sung with Spade Cooley's western swing ban before organizing his own group, and to show that what goes around really does come around, after Tex Cromer left Lawrence Welk, he cut a couple of records with Spade Cooley!

Here he is on RCA Victor in 1950:

That's pretty fun! Even gets a little square dance in there!

So, good job, Bob "Tex" Cromer!

Bonus Song: "All the Things You Are" (1939)

So, in my area yesterday it was well above 80 degrees and it's supposed to hit 90 this afternoon!

I was thinking that's very warm for May. Then I naturally thought of the 1939 Broadway musical "Very Warm for May," a not particularly successful show that did at least boast a score by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein.

Said score featured the outstanding standard "All the Things You Are," which was far more popular than the show itself and has had numerous recordings.

Artie Shaw's band included drummer Buddy Rich and saxophonist Tony Pastor (far right)

Of the contemporary recordings of the song, I'm particular fond of the version by Artie Shaw with vocalist Helen Forrest on Bluebird Records:

What a great band that was!

Over on Bluebird's parent label Victor, the also great Tommy Dorsey band recorded the song with vocalist Jack Leonard:

You can't go wrong with TD's trombone and Jack Leonard's vocals!

So, a good day to stay in and chill with some 78s!

Friday the 13th!

Happy Friday the 13th!

In order to celebrate the day, let's listen to this Les Brown recording of a Bobby Troup song on Columbia Records in 1947:

Lots of fun! 

Movie Time: "The Batman" (2022)

I do watch a lot baseball movies and other old movies, but I do occasionally view something newer!

As a case in point, I watched the new movie "The Batman" to see what the buzz was all about.

I have to say that it didn't really grab me, as I thought it was just too dark, literally and figuratively!

A lot of new super-hero movies are just so grim with no light moments at all. And at a runtime approaching three hours, "The Batman" offers a lot of that grimness!

And it is actually dark, as in not brightly lit!

I will say that Robert Pattinson does make a good Batman I liked how he was more of a detective here than has been the case in other movies.

Whatever the case, "The Batman" has been very well-received and reminds me once again that I'm somewhat out of touch.

Not that I need any reminding!

Bonus Song: "Always"

While still on the subject of the 1942 film "The Pride of the Yankees," the theme song, if you will, was the Irving Berlin composition "Always" from 1925.

The song is heard in a nightclub scene when it's played by Ray Noble and his Orchestra and sung by Bettye Avery. This particular scene also features a dance number by the team of Veloz and Yolanda which frankly goes on a bit too long. It needed more Ray Noble!

Back in the day when you had to watch movies on TV and were at the mercy of the station, this scene was usually cut to allow room for more commercials!

But "Always" pops up as background music quite a bit in the film. Gary Cooper even whistles the tune!

Movies often featured older songs and sometimes the songs gained new popularity, sometimes becoming more popular this time around then ever before, with the prime example being "As Time Goes By" when featured in "Casablanca" in 1942.

Despite the snappy new sheet music seen at the top of the page, it seems that "Always" didn't really get much traction from being featured in "The Pride of the Yankees."

But...

Things took in an interesting turn in 1994 when Deanna Durbin sang "Always" in her movie "Christmas Holiday."

That exposure got the song got a bunch of new recording, including Deanna's own lovely version on Decca Records:

Very nice!

Now, the lack of recordings in 1942 vs. the several in 1944 can be partially explained by the recording ban, but apparently this instrumental version by Gordon Jenkins was recorded in 1942, but not released by Capitol Records until 1944:

Not sure what the story or or why Capitol didn't promote it in 1942 with the tie-in to "The Pride of the Yankees."

Another instrumental version was recorded by Paul Lavalle for the small Muiscraft label in 1944:

I like that a lot!

That's from an album of waltzes, so it might be just a coincidence that Paul Lavalle recorded the song in the same year as Deanna Durbin.

Now I'm going around in circles again!