2009 Vitaphone Program

Saturday, June 20, 2009

  1. Vitaphone Billboard (1936) – One of a series of one-reel Brooklyn filmed shorts in the “Big Time Vaudeville” series that presented multiple acts in a recreation of a mini-vaudeville program. Featured here are The Keller Sisters & Lynch, best remembered as vocalists on the Jean Goldkette Victor 78 “Sunday”.
  2. The Amphibian Band (1929) – A brief clip from a Fox Movietone newsreel. The studio sent their sound cameras all over the world to capture news as well as novelty performances like this.
  3. Paramount Song Makers Series (1933-34) – Here are several entries from this rare series in which song writers performed their own tunes. Tonight we present Johnny Green, Edward Heyman, Dana Suesse and Ralph Rainger.
  4. Walt Roesner & The Capitolians (1929) – This is a New York-produced MGM Movietone short presenting the Capitol Theatre’s all star band. Look for Jimmy Dorsey, Rube Bloom, Miff Mole and Nat Brusilloff among many other top musicians.
  5. Starlit Days At The Lido (1935) – This is a MGM all-star short shot in beautiful three-strip Technicolor. Musically the standouts are Henry Busse & His Orchestra and Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards.
  6. Eddie Peabody And His College Chums (1928) – One of the earliest Paramount talking shorts, shot in Astoria. Peabody had made several Vitaphone sound shorts by this time.
  7. Horace Heidt & His Californians (1931) – Shot at Vitaphone’s Brooklyn studios (still standing) this lively band short captures the true nature of Heidt’s performing stage orchestra.
  8. Ted Lewis in ‘The Happiness Remedy” (1931) – Another Paramount Astoria short, in which we glimpse Eddie Lang and hear the band perform “Homemade Sunshine” as they recorded that year on Columbia.
  9. Gentlemen of Polish (1934) – Here is a long unseen MGM short starring Vitaphone favorites Shaw & Lee. Of particular interest is the studio’s use of scenes and rehearsal footage cut from their concurrent feature “Hollywood Party”.