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| A scene from King of Jazz (1930). |
In their efforts to find ways to showcase talkie performers, in the early
days of sound film most of the major studios produced elaborate musical
revues featuring their leading contract players. MGM released
Hollywood Revue of 1929 (for which Arthur Freed and Nacio
Herb Brown furnished the song “Singin’ in the Rain”), Warner Brothers had
Show of Shows (which included a speech from
Richard III by John Barrymore), and Fox came up with
Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 – all decidedly mixed bags,
as one might imagine. The only one with an actual concept was Universal’s
King of Jazz: it was a loving though tongue-in-cheek
tribute to Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra staged and shot by the
extravagant stage director John Murray Anderson. Anderson sent it flying
madly over budget, and after it opened to terrible reviews, it sank quickly
at the box office – and neither Anderson nor Whiteman wound up with a movie
career. (Whiteman made sporadic appearances in movie musicals over the next
two decades, most memorably in
Strike Up the Band with
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.) But Criterion’s lovingly restored DVD
reveals a charming, inventive early musical in stunning two-tone
Technicolor. The palette – pink and carmine and orange, silver and pearly
white, eggshell blue bordering on turquoise (true blue wasn’t possible
until three-tone Technicolor was developed) – is elegant, Gatsby-ish;
Herman Rosse designed both sets and costumes. And the lighting by Hal Mohr,
Jerry Ash and Ray Rennahan adds a touch of expressionism, with purplish
shadows deepening the images.
