Forgotten but fascinating musical clunker, an Early Talkie from M-G-M (so early, Leo-the-Lion has a silent roar), all about Charles Kaley’s heel of a tunesmith, a love-’em-and-leave-‘em guy who drops his latest lover once he gets a hit song out of the affair. And he’ll do much the same when his best pal dies in a street accident. What a skunk! (When it comes to rats in film musicals, Robert De Niro in NEW YORK, NEW YORK/’77 has nothing on this guy.) Poor Kaley, a bit stiff, but not badly cast, with something of George Gershwin in his profile, never heard from again after this sour debut tanked. Oddly, after an inevitable last minute redemption, he goes right back to old habits, writing a new song stolen from life. Some lesson learned. It must have puzzled the studio to watch helplessly as so much of the talent that scored in last year’s Best Pic Winner, BROADWAY MELODY (director Harry Beaumont; songsters Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed; even a pair of 2-Strip TechniColor showcase numbers*) fell on their collective faces.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Listen up for the radio announcer when one of Kaley’s songs comes on the air near the end of the film. It’s an uncredited Jack Benny who’d just played Master of Ceremonies in M-G-M’s huge 1929 hit THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE. But the craze for Early Talkie Musicals went very cold very fast; and (with few exceptions) wouldn’t come back till Warner Bros. figured out how do it right in 42nd STREET/’33; the same year Fred Astaire hit town.
DOUBLE-BILL: *To see 2-Strip TechniColor in pristine condition, try the new restoration on Criterion of THE KING OF JAZZ, with almost 2/3's of the picture derived from original negative. A major flop in 1930, it’s surely the best of all the major studio revues, but missed its commercial window of opportunity showing up just a few months after audiences had soured on the form after too many inept musicals.
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