Stephanie (September 2005)

Rating:    (of five)

"A nice little historical snapshot of state-of-the-art entertainment in 1929" --- I had to keep telling myself that as the movie creaked on...and on...

This is MGM's talking picture debut, and they throw in everything, everyone, and the kitchen sink in an effort to prove that they're on the cutting edge of this newfangled "talkie stuff."  Most of their biggest stars are on hand (Joan, William Haines, Norma Shearer, Marion Davies, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Laurel and Hardy, Anita Page), with the notable exceptions of Garbo, Lon Chaney (though the "Lon Chaney's Gonna Get You If You Don't Watch Out" number is devoted to him), and some foreign leading men like Nils Asther and Ramon Novarro, who presumably hadn't perfected their English enough to be allowed to speak in MGM-public yet.

MGM is apparently attempting to unite stage and screen here---several mentions are made of stage and screen stars being "the best of friends." As the "revue" in the title suggests, there's no plot, just a series of performers doing mostly schticky stage acts sandwiched in between chorus numbers. Jack Benny is wry and relatively "Modern" (an issue that comes up relatively often in the proceedings) as the MC of the show, and he's assisted occasionally by Conrad Nagel, who gets to suavely announce a few acts and sing, suavely, to Anita Page.

Joan, just months past her huge "Our Dancing Daughters" hit, is the first star to perform a number, six minutes into the film. Nagel introduces her with "Here's one of my favorites, and I know you like her too. Because she's the personification of youth and beauty and joy and happiness." Joan, standing beside a piano, replies "That's awfully kind of you, Conrad. Thank you." And then launches into a slow, beaming rendition of "I've Got a Feeling For You." Then the tempo picks up, the Biltmore Quartet appears, and Joan starts energetically hoofin' to the song with their accompaniment. At the end of the number, she hops onto the piano and is wheeled out with a snappy smile.

In a review of the film that I found in the "Films of Joan Crawford" book, an LA critic at the time wrote: "Joan Crawford's popularity with the collegiate crowd is understandable. Joan is the spirit of youth. And her manner of singing...coupled with her dancing...was a radium drop for the bill." Not that I have any idea what "radium drop" means, but Joan is indeed a bright, refreshing presence in the midst of the rest of the primarily old-fashioned attempts at entertainment. While almost everyone else tries far too hard to "put on a show" according to the apparently still-vaudevillian dictates of what a "show" might be, Joan simply turns on the charm and smiles and dances her heart out in an indeed thoroughly modern display of pure non-schticky and non-prop-reliant charisma.

MGM gets a bit schizophrenic here: Are they after the "Moderns" or the "Old Folks at Home" or the "Middle-Aged Folks at Home Still Trying to Keep Up"? All of the above, obviously. In the pure "Old Folks" camp is Charles King singing the incredibly hokey, Al Jolson-inspired "Your Mother and Mine."  In the "Modern" category: Joan's number and Buster Keaton's wildly spasmodic (and hilarious) underwater "Salome" dance before King Neptune, as well as a few of the more scantily clad chorus numbers.  In the "Wannabe" category is Norma Shearer and John Gilbert's switchover from a straight "Romeo and Juliet" scene to a "Modern"-lingo version of the play called "The Neckers," complete with the Gilbert's Romeo saying "So long!" to his Juliet. (This all sounds like a clever idea, but the bit tries way too hard to be clever and reminds me of Steve Allen's deadpan reciting of Beatles' lyrics for a decidedly middle-class, middle-aged TV audience in the '60s.) Also in the "trying too hard to be hip"/stupidly dadaesque category: Really, why does William Haines have to eat various parts of Jack Benny's costume? It's one of those "so what" moments that's more dull than daring.

Despite the avowed early attempt at linking stage and screen, MGM also throws in a few technological bells and whistles to show where the real future lies: In the very first chorus number, half the dancers are in blackface, so the fancy new negative photography can subsequently reverse the blackface to white. There are also several bits where a performer is shrunken, to fit in a pocket, or dance atop a drum, or slide out of a chair. Plus some rudimentary colorization, for the "Romeo and Juliet" scene as well as the final "Singing in the Rain" number.

Occasional newfangled gimmicks notwithstanding, MGM still relies far too heavily on tired stage techniques. An example is the often interminable gap between scenes while we watch the curtain close and wait for the next act to appear. I know that by 1929, MGM had put out enough silent pictures to be adept, at least, at the art of cutting!  (Seriously---I wasn't asking for anything fancy. Just...not the entire traversal of the curtain and the performer subsequently walking to his or her mark, with loooong seconds of dead silence. This is film, by gum!)

All said, while I in 2005 found 90% of "Revue" boring to the point of near-shrieking, it was, nonetheless, a huge box-office hit upon its release---indicative of its appeal to a 1929 audience dying to see how its favorite MGM stars would weather the at-the-time current "talkie storm" and/or still clinging to memories of stage shows that they were familiar with. Today, definitely not for any general viewer, but a necessary piece of arcania for the Joan or MGM or early film buff.