It is the opening night of the Phantom Sweetheart theater troupe's performance of "The Phantom Sweetheart". The troupe had staggered through tank towns with unpaid bills, but tonight would tell the tale- Broadway or bust.
At the Wallace Theater, head usher Jimmy (William Bakewell) and coat check girl Kitty (Sally O'Neil) are in a romantic relationship. Kitty dreams of becoming a Broadway actress to help her old father, the doorman (Thomas Jefferson), but is too poor and cannot get an acting job.
Sarah Fogarty (Louise Fazenda) is an actress and girlfriend of Jerry, the director (Wheeler Oakman). She is jealous of Nita French (Betty Compson) getting the lead role. Pete, the stage manager (Lee Moran) and Harold Astor (Arthur Lake) get into an argument because the cast has not been paid by Jerry. Pete is annoyed because his ex-girlfriend that he still had feelings for lied about taking her mother, and instead brought her taxi-driver boyfriend. The overture plays and everyone gets ready. Harold and the Dorsey Twins (Madeline and Marion Fairbanks) beg Jerry for money. Sam Bloom (Sam Hardy), a prop and scenery magnate, came to collect the money or he would take the scenery, but Jerry did not have the money. Joe Beaton, the comedic relief (Joe E. Brown) and Harold got into a short argument about trampling his laughs.
The overture ends and the first musical number "Welcome Home" starts, taking place beside a levee and featuring a moving boat prop. Father (Henry Fink) sings the first verse and chorus of "Welcome Home". In the wings, Mr. Bloom only wants the money. The Four Covans come out and do a tap number. Just as the number ends, Harold embraces his Fiancée (Josephine Houston), and a drunken Joe Beaton falls off the side of the ship and pops out of the water.
When everyone leaves, Harold hears thunder and in the tree is Nita dressed as his phantom sweetheart. She sings "Let me Have my Dreams" and Harold is mesmerized.
Backstage, Jerry explains that Bob Wallace (Purnell B. Pratt), the owner of the theater and long-term boyfriend of Nita, stopped paying the troupe, therefore leaving them with unpaid bills and actors. But Mr. Bloom would not listen and said that he would take the scenery.
Just before he is about to leave, Sarah bumps into him and boasts about her requests from various people. She persuades him to stay when Ethel Waters went onstage to sing "Am I Blue", first by herself, then with the harmony quartet.
In the coat room, Kitty had a look of yearning for the stage. Bob Wallace suggested engaging in intimate activities to get her a part in the show, but harshly declined. Jimmy suggests to Jerry that they should hold down the box office to get the money, and Kitty innocently says that she's checked 80 more coats that night. Mr. Wallace shows up in a drunken state and Jerry accuses Mr. Wallace of not paying because he couldn't get a first date with Kitty. Just before Mr. Wallace hits him, Sarah shows up and breaks the commotion unassumingly, asking about Jerry's new operette.
"Lift the Juleps to your Two Lips" starts next, the set being the front yard of a plantation. It is first sung by Father, then danced by The Four Covans and the Dorsey Twins, then sung again by Harold's Fiancée. Nita as the Phantom Sweetheart gets up on the wall and sings "Let me Have my Dreams", though nobody else witnesses it. Joe Beaton doesn't believe him, and in a drunken daze, sees some ladies peep over the wall.
While nobody is looking, a mysterious armed figure robs the box office after the operator (Tom O'Brien) told Jerry. Joe, a theater detective (Harry Gribbon) accuses Jimmy and Jerry of robbing the box office, but Jerry had accused Jimmy of doing it before. Jerry accused Jimmy of the crime and said that he would be arrested.
Harold and the Phantom Sweetheart
Onstage, Joe Beaton and Harold are going fox hunting. Chorus girls do a dance number with hobby horses. Mechanical dogs chase a fox, and real horses gallop across the stage. The Phantom Sweetheart comes out, and Harold Falls off his horse and blacks out. She holds him in her arms and says "dream that we're in the land of let's pretend". The screen blacks out, and fades into a castle with chorus girls dressed as trumpeters and Nita dressed as a queen. Harold walks down the grand staircase and sits next to Nita. Mildred Caroll sings "In the Land of Let's Pretend". Women in Zeigfeld style costumes walk around the stage. They end up standing on the stairs. Pete is making more balloons, but when talking to a showgirl, one pops and the loud air tank can be heard. The song ends and Joe Beaton comes out in a motorcycle and sentences Harold to death. Harold is woken up by Joe Beaton and sent backstage. Joe Beaton reveals that he caught what he thought was a fox, but was actually a skunk.
Onstage, Harold can only think about the phantom sweetheart. Harold's fiancée sings "Don't it Mean a Thing to you" in a garden. Bart, a man playing the butler(Otto Hoffman), has stage fright and faints in the dressing room. Jerry takes his place, although he has no theatrical experience. They quickly get him ready, but when he says the line "whiskey and soda, sir", he instead says "gin and ginger ale, sir".
Backstage, Mr. Wallace is drunk in the prop room, and Kitty is getting props. Mr. Wallace tries to give her alcohol, and she reluctantly accepts. He then tries to kiss her and make advances. She screams for Jimmy, and he gets there in time to save her. He hits Mr. Wallace in the face and runs away with Kitty. He warns Kitty that he might never see her again, but she promises to stay faithful to him.
Everyone leaves except Harold, and instead of Nita being in the gazebo, she is refusing to go onstage because she is not being paid. Harold stalls onstage, hopeless, but suddenly, Kitty appears in the gazebo dressed as the Phantom Sweetheart in a full body veil singing "Let me Have my Dreams".
Backstage, everyone congratulates Kitty. Sarah is worried that Nita will hurt Kitty for she was mad watching her steal the show. Instead, Nita congratulates Kitty and tells her that her days of show business are over. Ethel Waters goes onstage to sing "Birmingham Bertha", the epilogue to "Am I Blue". Angelus Babe gets onstage to dance.
Sarah congratulating Kitty
Kitty's dad confessed to robbing the box office backstage, and everyone agrees to let him go scot-free after returning the money. Bob Wallace is arrested for harassing Kitty and hitting Jimmy. Nita says that she is going to divorce Mr. Wallace and retire from the stage, dreaming of her future, but she is happy for Kitty.
Onstage, it is Harold's wedding. The guests arrive and sing "Wedding Day". Harold says, "Yes father, this is my wedding day. But there is my bride!", as he points to the Phantom Sweetheart on the top of the balcony. Harold's fiancée sings the last line of "Don't it Mean a Thing to you?", then the Phantom Sweetheart sings the last line of "Let me Have my Dreams". Everybody sings "Am I Blue?" as Joe Beaton proposes to Harold's Fiancée, followed by "Lift the Juleps to your Two Lips" and "Welcome Home". During the bows, Kitty comes out with Jimmy and the show comes to its happy ending.[8]
"Lift the Juleps to your Two Lips": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Henry Fink, Josephine Huston and chorus and danced by the Four Covans and Madeline and Marion Fairbanks
"Let Me Have My Dreams": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, performed by Betty Compson
"In the Land of Let's Pretend": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Mildred Carroll and chorus
"Don't it Mean a Thing to you?": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Josephine Houston and Arthur Lake, danced by Marion and Madeline Fairbanks
"Let Me Have My Dreams": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, performed by Sally O'Neil
"Birmingham Bertha": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, performed by Ethel Waters, dancing by Angelus Babe
"Wedding Day": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Henry Fink, Arthur Lake, Sally O'Neil and bridal chorus
"Finale": On With the Show Medley, "Don't it Mean a Thing to you?" Performed by Josephine Houston/"Let me Have my Dreams" Performed by Sally O'Neil/"Am I Blue?" Performed by Bridal Chorus/"Lift the Juleps to your Two Lips" Performed by Bridal Chorus/ "Welcome Home" Performed by Bridal Chorus
Notes
The song "In the Land of Let's Pretend" was sung by The Gumm Sisters in the Vitaphone Varietiesshort film "Bubbles", as well as the Vitaphone Kiddies singing songs from Paris and others. "Am I Blue" also gained popularity and was covered and featured in many other films.
Production and promotion
Lobby card for On with the Show with Joe E. Brown holding a skunk he caught and Ethel Waters and Angelus Babe in Birmingham Bertha
Warner Bros. promoted On with the Show! as filmed in "natural color." This was the first in a series of Warner Bros. contracted color films.
The film generated much interest in Hollywood and virtually overnight, most other major studios began filming in the color process. The film would be eclipsed by the far greater success of the second Technicolor film, Gold Diggers of Broadway. (Song of the West was completed first, but its release was delayed until March 1930).
Reception
Box office
The film was a box-office hit, with a worldwide gross of more than $2 million.[4]
According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $1,741,000 domestically and $674,000 internationally.[3]
Critical
Reviews from critics were mixed. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times wrote that the film was "to be felicitated on the beauty of its pastel shades, which were obtained by the Technicolor process, but little praise can be accorded its story or to its raucous voices....It would have been better if this film had no story, and no sound, for it is like a clumsy person arrayed in Fifth Avenue finery."[9]Variety reported that the film was "too long in running", but was nevertheless "impressive, both as an entertainment and as a talker."[10]Film Daily called it "fine entertainment and a very adroit mixture of comedy, some rather bad pathos and musical comedy numbers."[11] The New York Herald Tribune declared it "the best thing the films have done in the way of transferring Broadway music shows to the screen and, even if the story is bad and the entire picture considerably in need of cutting it is an admirable and frequently handsome bit of cinema exploring."[12]John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that the film was "completely undistinguished for wit, charm, or novelty, except that it is done in color. Possibly in the millennium all movies will be colored. In these early days of the art, however, not much can be said for it, except that it is not really distressing."[13]
A surviving 20-second color fragment found in 2005.
One reel of the 35mm color nitrate print of On With the Show exists at the BFI archive.[15] Only black-and-white prints have survived from the remainder of the film.[6][16] A fragment of an original color print lasting about 20 seconds surfaced in 2005. Other original color fragments were discovered in 2014. A copy of the black-and-white version has long been held by the Library of Congress.[17][18] The film's copyright expired on January 1, 2025, resulting in the film entering the public domain.
Home media
In December 2009, On with the Show! (in black and white) was made available on manufactured-on-demand DVD by the Warner Archive Collection.[6]
12Glancy, H Mark (1995). "Warner Bros Film Grosses, 1921–51: the William Schaefer ledger". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 15: 55–73. doi:10.1080/01439689500260031.
123Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 7 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
12Hall, Sheldon; Neale, Stephen (2010). Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p.68. ISBN9780814330081.
↑Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress, (<-book title) p.132 c.1978 the American Film Institute
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