The Show of Shows explained

The Show of Shows
Producer:Darryl F. Zanuck
Director:John G. Adolfi
Music:Edward Ward
Cinematography:Barney McGill
Studio:Warner Bros. Pictures
Distributor:Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime:128 minutes
107 minutes (Technicolor)
Language:English
Country:United States
Budget:$795,000[1]
Gross:$1,624,000

The Show of Shows is a 1929 American pre-Code musical revue film directed by John G. Adolfi and distributed by Warner Bros. The all-talking Vitaphone production cost almost $800,000 and was shot almost entirely in Technicolor.[1]

The Show of Shows was Warner Bros.' fifth color film; the first four were The Desert Song (1929), On with the Show! (1929), Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929) and Paris (1929). (Song of the West was actually completed by June 1929 but had its release delayed until March 1930). The Show of Shows featured most of the contemporary Warner Bros. film stars, including John Barrymore, Richard Barthelmess, Noah Beery Sr., Loretta Young, Dolores Costello, Bull Montana, Myrna Loy, Chester Conklin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Tully Marshall, Nick Lucas, and Betty Compson.

Overview

The film was styled in the same format as the earlier Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The high budget of the film meant that although it performed well at the box office, it did not return as much profit as The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The Show of Shows was originally meant to be and advertised as being an all-color talking movie; however, twenty-one minutes were in black and white—17 minutes of the first part and the first four minutes of part two.

The film features nearly all the stars then working under contract at Warner Bros. Virtually all the performers shown would vanish from the studio by 1931, after tastes had shifted owing to the effects of the Great Depression, which began to be felt late in 1930.

The Show of Shows features many of the performers who were popular in silent movies mixed in with hand-picked stage stars and novelty acts. The emcee of the film was Frank Fay, who performed in the style of barbed sarcasm. In an era of almost naive optimism, he stands out as a witty devil's advocate.[2]

Segments

Songs featured

Cast

Credited

Performer Segment
Master of ceremonies
Onscreen pianist
"Meet My Sister" and "Lady Luck" finale
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"Bicycle Built for Two"
"Henry VI Part III"
Introduces "Meet My Sister"
"Motion Picture Pirates", "Mexican Moonshine"
"Meet My Sister"
"Mexican Moonshine"
Singing "One Hour of Love"
Prologue (executioner)
"Meet My Sister", "Bicycle Built for Two"
"Meet My Sister"
"If I Could Learn to Love (As Well as I Fight)"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"Lady Luck" (Finale)
"Bicycle Built for Two"
"Meet My Sister"
"Meet My Sister"
"Bicycle Built for Two"
"Meet My Sister", "Motion Picture Pirates"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys", "Meet My Sister"
"Meet My Sister"
"Bicycle Built for Two"
"Recitations"
"Singin' in the Bathtub"
Alexander Gray "Lady Luck" (Finale)
"Florodora", "Recitations", "Mexican Moonshine"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys"
"Pingo Pongo", "Singin' in the Bathtub"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
Lola "Meet My Sister", "Lady Luck" (Finale)
"Florodora Boys", "Believe Me" and "Chinese Fantasy"
"The Only Song I Know", "Chinese Fantasy" and "Lady Luck" (Finale)
"Motion Picture Pirates", "Mexican Moonshine"
"Meet My Sister"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys", "If I Could Learn to Love"
"Singin' in the Bathtub"
"Singin' in the Bathtub"
"$20 Bet", "Bicycle Built for Two"
"$20 Bet"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys"
"Meet My Sister"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys", "Meet My Sister"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
"Motion Picture Pirates"
Introduces "An Oriental Fantasy"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys"
Introduces "Black and White Girls"
"$20 Bet"
"What's Become of the Florodora Boys"
Prologue
"If I Could Learn To Love"
"Bicycle Built for Two"
"Bicycle Built for Two"
"Meet My Sister"

Uncredited

Box Office

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $1,259,000 domestically and $336,000 foreign.[1]

Preservation status

The Show of Shows[3] still survives in a black-and-white 1958 print from an Associated Artists Productions. "Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet" is a single reel of a number that was shot but not included in the final cut, being later used for a standalone release as a b/w short.[4] [5]

Certain segments in color of the film have been recovered.[6] As of June 2018, these are as follows (in the order of their presentation in the film):

1. "Meet My Sister" – Sequence was shown publicly at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival.[7]

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. This sequence should not be confused with a color test John Barrymore made for RKO in 1933; that test involved a recitation from "Hamlet."[8]

7. "Finale" – A six-minute segment of this sequence was shown publicly in Australia ca. 1978; this particular 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.[9] 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.[10]

The Library of Congress maintains a copy (since the 1970s) of the black/white version.[11]

In 2022, an unofficial reconstructed Colorized version was uploaded online. It appears to be colorization by artificial intelligence, and does not display the real Technicolor footage.[12]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Warner 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
  2. Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation page 11
  3. Web site: Media History Digital Library : Free Texts : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive. archive.org.
  4. Web site: Jack Buchanan & Glee Quartet. https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211219/3bDZjpCT2S8 . 2021-12-19 . live. Fiftyground. July 8, 2008. YouTube.
  5. Book: Bradley. Edwin M.. The First Hollywood Sound Shorts. 2005. McFarland & Co.. London. 978-0-7864-4319-2. 116.
  6. News: BFI finds movie gold of silent era star Louise Brooks . BBC News . April 28, 2018.
  7. Web site: I See A Dark Theater – Dawn of Technicolor. I See A Dark Theater.
  8. Web site: Hamlet Screen Tests · British Universities Film & Video Council. bufvc.ac.uk.
  9. Web site: Rare Technicolor Snippets of Lost Films Discovered.
  10. http://www.picking.com/technicolor.txt
  11. 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
  12. Web site: The Show of Shows 1929 Technicolor - in Natural Color - Musical Revue - Vitaphone - Pre-Code .