On with the Show (1929 film)
Encyclopedia
On with the Show! is a 1929
1929 in film
-Events:The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.*January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors....

 American musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 released by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 The film is noted as the first ever all-talking
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

 all-color feature length movie, and the second color movie released by Warner Bros.; the first was a partly color, black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

, The Desert Song
The Desert Song (1929 film)
The Desert Song is a musical operetta film photographed partly in two-color Technicolor. This was the first movie released by Warner Bros. to be in color. Although some of the songs from the show have been omitted, the film is otherwise virtually a duplicate of the stage production...

(1929).

Plot

With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. Can the show be saved?

Cast

The cast includes William Bakewell
William Bakewell
William Bakewell , also known as Billy Bakewell, was an American actor, who achieved his greatest fame as one of the premiere juvenile performers of the late 1920s and early 1930s.-Life and career:...

 as the head usher eager to get his sweetheart, box-office girl Sally O'Neil
Sally O'Neil
Sally O'Neil was an American film actress of the 1920s. She was born as Virginia Louise Noonan, one of 11 children born to a judge in Bayonne, New Jersey. One of her sisters was actress Molly O'Day....

, noticed as a leading girl. Betty Compson
Betty Compson
Betty Compson was an American actress. Born Eleanor Luicime Compson in Beaver, Utah, she had an extensive film career. Her father died when she was young, and she was forced to drop out of school and earn a living for herself and her mother...

 plays the temperamental star and Arthur Lake the whiny young male lead. Louise Fazenda
Louise Fazenda
Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.-Early life:Of Portuguese ancestry, she was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Joseph Fazenda, was a merchandise broker. After moving west Louise attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary's Convent...

 is the company's eccentric comedienne, who is given little to do but laugh at inappropriate moments, her hair hennaed
Henna
Henna is a flowering plant used since antiquity to dye skin, hair, fingernails, leather and wool. The name is also used for dye preparations derived from the plant, and for the art of temporary tattooing based on those dyes...

 an improbable shade of red. Joe E. Brown
Joe E. Brown (comedian)
Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...

 plays the part of a mean comedian who constantly argues with Arthur Lake
Arthur Lake (actor)
Arthur Lake was an American actor known best for bringing Dagwood Bumstead, the bumbling husband of Blondie, to life in film, radio and television.-Early life and career:...

.

All of the characters are stereotypes and much of the attempts at humor are fascinating historically, but were dated even at the time of the film's release. Contemporary critic Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for The New York Times, from October 1924 to September 1934....

 noted in his New York Times review that he imagined the lovely hues "writhed in agony" serving such a story.

Credits
  • Arthur Lake
    Arthur Lake (actor)
    Arthur Lake was an American actor known best for bringing Dagwood Bumstead, the bumbling husband of Blondie, to life in film, radio and television.-Early life and career:...

     as Harold Astor
  • Betty Compson
    Betty Compson
    Betty Compson was an American actress. Born Eleanor Luicime Compson in Beaver, Utah, she had an extensive film career. Her father died when she was young, and she was forced to drop out of school and earn a living for herself and her mother...

     as Nita French
  • Joe E. Brown
    Joe E. Brown (comedian)
    Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...

     as Joe Beaton
  • Sally O'Neil
    Sally O'Neil
    Sally O'Neil was an American film actress of the 1920s. She was born as Virginia Louise Noonan, one of 11 children born to a judge in Bayonne, New Jersey. One of her sisters was actress Molly O'Day....

     as Kitty (as Sally O'Neill)
  • William Bakewell
    William Bakewell
    William Bakewell , also known as Billy Bakewell, was an American actor, who achieved his greatest fame as one of the premiere juvenile performers of the late 1920s and early 1930s.-Life and career:...

     as Jimmy
  • Louise Fazenda
    Louise Fazenda
    Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.-Early life:Of Portuguese ancestry, she was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Joseph Fazenda, was a merchandise broker. After moving west Louise attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary's Convent...

     as Sarah Fogarty
  • Sam Hardy as Jerry
  • Harry Gribbon
    Harry Gribbon
    Harry Gribbon was an American film actor. He appeared in 144 films between 1915 and 1938.He was born in New York, New York, and died in Los Angeles, California. He was the brother of actor Eddie Gribbon....

     as Joe
  • Lee Moran
    Lee Moran
    Lee Moran was an American actor, director and writer. He transcended the silent era of motion pictures to the talkies. Moran appeared in 462 films, directed 109 and wrote for 92 between 1912 and 1935....

     as Pete, the Stage Manager
  • Wheeler Oakman
    Wheeler Oakman
    Wheeler Oakman was an American film actor.Usually appearing as a henchman in films, rarely a leading role, he appeared in over 280 films between 1912 and 1948....

     as Bob Wallace
  • Marion Fairbanks as Dorsey Twin
  • Madeline Fairbanks as Dorsey Twin
  • Purnell B. Pratt as Sam Bloom
  • Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

     as Dad
  • Ethel Waters
    Ethel Waters
    Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

     as Ethel Walters
  • Otto Hoffman
    Otto Hoffman
    Otto Hoffman was an American film actor. He appeared in 199 films between 1915 and 1944.He was born in New York and died in Los Angeles, California from lung cancer.-Selected filmography:* The Haunted Bedroom...

     as Bert
  • Harry Fink as Father in Show
  • Josephine Huston as Harold's Fiancee in Show'


Songs

  • "Welcome Home" Music by Harry Akst, Lyrics by Grant Clarke, Performed by Henry Fink and chorus, andDanced by The Four Covans
  • "Let Me Have My Dreams" Music by Akst, Lyrics by Clarke, and Performed by Josephine Huston (on screen Betty Compson and later Sally O'Neil)
  • "Am I Blue?" Music by Akst, Lyrics by Clarke, and Performed by Ethel Waters and the Harmony Four Quartette
  • "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
  • "In the Land of Let's Pretend" Music by Akst, Lyrics by Clarke, and Sung by Mildred Carroll and chorus
  • "Don't It Mean a Thing to You?" Music by Akst, Lyrics by Clarke, Sung by Josephine Huston and Arthur Lake, and Danced by Marion Fairbanks and Madeline Fairbanks
  • "Birmingham Bertha" Music by Akst, Lyrics by Clarke, Performed by Ethel Waters, with dancing by John William Sublett
  • "Wedding Day" Music by Akst, Lyrics by Clarke, Sung by Henry Fink, Arthur Lake, Josephine Huston and chorus
  • "Bridal Chorus" (uncredited) From "Lohengrin", Music by Richard Wagner, Played at the beginning of the finale

Production and promotion

Warner Bros. promoted On with the Show! as being in "Natural Color
Natural color
Natural Color was a term used in the beginning of film and later on in the 1920s, and early 1930s as a color film process that actually filmed color images, rather than a color tinted or colorized movie...

." The pioneers of sound were the first to introduce full talking combined with full color. Adverts proclaimed 'Now color takes to the screen'. The novelty of the color alone was enough to ensure a worldwide gross of over $2 million, at the time an outstanding figure. For Warner's this would be the first in a series of contracted films made in color.

The film generated much interest in Hollywood and virtually overnight, most other major studios began films shot in the process. The film would be eclipsed by the far greater success of the second Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 film, Gold Diggers of Broadway. The original negative of On With the Show is now lost and no Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 prints have survived, only prints in black-and-white. A fragment of an original color print lasting about 20 seconds was recently discovered.

The film was a combination of a few genres. Part backstage musical using the now familiar 'show within a show' format, part mystery and part comedy. It featured famed singer Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

 in two songs written and staged for the film. "Am I Blue?
Am I Blue?
"Am I Blue?" is a song written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke in 1929, and was a big hit that year for Ethel Waters. It has become a standard and has been covered by numerous artists.-Other versions:...

" and "Birmingham Bertha" (with dancer John Bubbles).
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