Swingtime in the Movies (1938)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Crane Wilbur

Writer:

Crane Wilbur (original screenplay)

Release Date:

1938 (USA)

Genre:

Musical | Short | Comedy

Plot:

Trouble is brewing on the set of the musical western, "The Texas Tornado". Nitvitch, the director, is...

Plot Keywords:

Two Reeler

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Fritz Feld	...	Mr. Nitvitch
Kathryn Kane	...	Joan Mason (as Katherine Kane)
John Carroll	...	Rick Arden
Charley Foy	...	Sammy
Jerry Colonna	...	The Texas Tornado
Helen Lynd	...	Lorna, an Actress
Irene Franklin	...	Kate, Head Waitress

Runtime:

20 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Vitaphone)

Certification:

USA:Approved (Certificate #4138)

Company:

Vitaphone Corporation, The

Trivia:

This is John Garfield's only theatrical release in Technicolor.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Musical Movieland (1944)

Soundtrack:

The Toast of the Texas Frontier

A Star Studded Lunch Break

This almost half and hour two reel short subject could almost qualify as as a mini-musical with several numbers by songwriters M.K.Jerome and Jack Scholl. The film is a movie with a short as director Fritz Feld tries desperately to finish a western he's directing and replace his less than talented leading lady Helen Lynd who just can't quite master a mushmouth Southern accent.

Feld finds his new leading lady in the Warner Brothers studio cafeteria among the servers in the person of Katherine Kane. The highlight of the short is the break for lunch in the cafeteria where the servers do a number and the camera pans to several of the Warner Brothers stars taking a break.

As this film was done in color it rather than some of the feature for these stars might well be considered their respective color debuts.

Fritz Feld and assistant Charley Foy provide a lot of laughs. It's a worthwhile short subject and worthy of the Academy Award nomination it got in that category.