Show of Shows (also The Show of Shows in various contemporary media accounts) is a 1929 American sound pre-Code musical revue film directed by John G. Adolfi and distributed by Warner Bros. The soundVitaphone production was shot almost entirely in Technicolor, cost almost $800,000 and earned more than twice as much at the box office.[2]
The film is styled in the same format as was the earlier MGM film The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Because of the film's high budget, although it performed well at the box office, it did not return as much profit as did The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Show of Shows was originally intended as an all-color sound film and promoted as such, but 21 minutes were shot in black and white—17minutes of the first part and the first four minutes of part two.
The film features nearly all of the stars under contract with Warner Bros, most of whom vanished from the studio by 1931 after tastes had shifted as a result of the Great Depression.
Show of Shows features many stars of silent films as well as stage and novelty acts. Frank Fay appears as the master of ceremonies.[3]
"Military March"— A pageant led by Monte Blue and Pasadena American Legion Fife and Drum Corps set entirely on a huge set of steps with the cadets changing formation to provide a series of color effects in a manner that would be popularized much later by Busby Berkeley.
"If I Could Learn to Love (As Well as I Fight)" — In a brief introductory sequence, missing from circulating prints, French boxer Georges Carpentier is introduced by Fay, who provokes Carpentier into lightly tapping him with his formidable hands, to which Fay comically overreacts. Carpentier sings against an Eiffel Tower backdrop accompanied by Patsy Ruth Miller and Alice White and a chorus of girls. A precision dance routine follows, with the performers on an upright series of geometric struts.
"Dear Little Pup" — Black-and-white sequence featuring Fay.
"The Only Song I Know" — Black-and-white sequence featuring Nick Lucas.
"Recitations" — Featuring Beatrice Lillie, Louise Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton and Fay, the sequence is a series of stark poetic recitations that are performed by each performer whole and then line by line, and when the lines are mixed, they describe a bizarre and suggestive product. The sequence also includes a parody of the song "Your Mother and Mine" and a series of jokes.
"If Your Best Friend Won't Tell You (Why Should I?)" — Silvers and Fay sing about halitosis.
"Larry Ceballos' Black and White Girls" — Silvers introduces a segment featuring chorus girls in black-and-white dresses. One half of the girls wear black fronts and white backs (with corresponding wigs) while the others wear outfits with the colors reversed. The dancers switch from white to black or form geometric patterns to the instrumental "Jumping Jack". This is a reworking of a nearly identical dance routine set to "The Doll Dance", which also appeared in the 1928 two-reeler Larry Ceballos' Roof Garden Revue. The dance appears to begin again but is halted by Louise Fazenda, who complains about the costumes and demands that Fay return to the stage, but he appears without his pants.
"Your Love Is All I Crave" — Fay sings a torch song of lost love and introduces the number with a series of topical jokes.
"Lady Luck" — In the film's finale, which lasts more than 15 minutes, the original Technicolor version starts with Alexander Gray singing "Lady Luck" inside an enormous ballroom set with windows revealing a green sky, and tap dancers perform on a wooden floor. Betty Compson walks the stage to meet Alexander Gray, and with the whole cast assembled, hundreds of colored streamers drop from the roof.
"Curtain of Stars" — The cast appear with their heads poked through holes in canvas, singing "Lady Luck".
Four specialty acts were filmed but deleted from the final release print. Each was released separately in 1930 as a Vitaphone short subject:
Evolution of the Dance (February 1930, Technicolor, 12 minutes): A pageant of performers offering various styles of dance, featuring the comically clumsy Lupino Lane in a hobo ensemble. Dance directors Larry Ceballos and Jack Haskell received screen credit in the short subject, but Lane did not.[4]
Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet (March 1930, black-and-white, 6 minutes): The British entertainer originally performed this sketch on Broadway in The Charlot Revue of 1926.[5] Buchanan apologizes to the audience for his unscheduled appearance (two of his remarks referring to Show of Shows were deleted) and explains that he is an emergency replacement for one of the Glee Quartet. The group presents "The Fox Has Left His Lair", but the singers perform so briskly that Buchanan becomes flustered and tries desperately to keep pace.[6][7]
Beatrice Lillie (March 1930, black-and-white, 6 minutes): Lillie sings about men but is interrupted by young male dancers, followed by old male dancers, followed by midget male dancers. Lillie was angered that this sequence, staged with low and obvious comedy, was released as a short subject. She sued Warner Bros. for $50,000 because the short "presented her to the world as a cheap and inconsequential performer". She lost the suit, appealed the verdict, and finally lost again in 1934.[8]
Hello, Baby (March 1930, technicolor, 20 minutes): Ann Pennington sings "Believe Me", which originally was to be sung by Irène Bordoni but was cut from the final release. The Bordoni version was later released by Columbia Records with the accompanying song "Just an Hour of Love". Pennington also sang two other songs that were only planned for the short. She was intended to have dance sequences in the finale, but they were not included.
Reception
According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $1,259,000 domestically and $336,000 internationally.[2]
Preservation
Show of Shows[9] survives in a black-and-white 1958 print from an Associated Artists Productions. Some color segments have been recovered, including:[10]
1. "Meet My Sister" – Sequence was shown publicly at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival.[11]
2. "Chinese Fantasy" – Entire sequence is present in commercially available copies of the film.
3. "Frank Fay With Sid Silvers" – An announcement was made in July 2017 by the Vitaphone Project that portions of this sequence have been recovered, and preservation is ongoing.
4. "A Bicycle Built For Two" – An announcement was made in July 2017 by the Vitaphone Project that portions of this sequence have also been recovered, and preservation is ongoing.
5. "If Your Best Friend Won't Tell You" – An announcement was made in July 2017 by the Vitaphone Project that portions of this sequence have also been recovered, and preservation is ongoing.
6. "King Richard III" – At least one Technicolor specimen frame is known to exist.[12]
7. "Finale" – A six-minute segment of this sequence was shown publicly in Australia in the late 1970s, but the print is believed to have been destroyed in the late 1980s. The British Film Archive has extracts from this scene along with snippets from other early film musicals.[13] At least one Technicolor specimen frame from this sequence is known to exist.
8. "Curtain of Stars" – A four-second segment of this sequence was restored by the George Eastman House.[14]
1234Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 10 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
↑Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress, (<-book title) p.165 c.1978 the American Film Institute
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