Summary
It is against the decadence of the Weimar Republic, starkly evoked in the Orpheum scenes, rather than the background of imperial Russia, that this picture unfolds
The Flame of LoveComets
Elstree Calling
Raise the Roof
Song of Soho
Harmony Heaven
The Flame of Love
The Loves of Robert Burns
Just for a Song
Greek Street
Piccadilly Nights
The Brat (The Nipper)
The Yellow Mask
Spanish Eyes
Big Business
Why Sailors Leave Home
February
One immediate result, which could have been foreseen, of the introduction of sound-films, is necessarily to place at a disadvantage any film that is derived from musical sources. To quote an outstanding instance, who would want to see The Arcadians on the screen with an unsynchronised ballet and a loose fitting if they could have it with every bar of the well-remembered music infallibly accompanying the movements of the pretty Arcadians in their dances, or the antics of the comedians? The advent of mechanical synchronisation reads as a warning to keep away from all operas, ‘grand’ or light, from all musical comedies, from ballet, and leave such luxuries to the new devices with which the old ones cannot compete in accurate fitting. After all, there are plenty of other stories in the world.
In its rush to make a sound picture that might ‘place at a disadvantage any film that is derived from musical sources’, the Alpha Film Corporation came up with Comets, in its way a prototype of the sort of revue-based compendium that British studios served up until the end of World War II, even feeding upon its own by using material from earlier compendiums to fill out the running time of new compendiums. Produced by Maurice J. Wilson and directed by Sasha Geneen, Comets was not without interest, featuring popular violinist Albert Sandler, celebrated clowns Noni and Horace, Heather Thatcher, piano entertainer Rex Evans, Flora le Breton (in 1929 she had appeared in a short, performing ‘Poor Little Locked-Up Me’), and Gus McNaughton in the first of many appearances in British musical films. From music-hall, Billy Merson brought his biggest success ‘The Spaniard That Blighted My Life’.
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- Cheer Up!British Musical Films, 1929-1945, pp. 9 - 25Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020