Fresh and Exciting

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

" . . . short!" any reasonable viewer would paraphrase "Mr. Rogers'" final exclamation to end THE AUDITION. Theater audiences of the early 1930s would wait with Bated Breath as this nine-minute live-action opening act began, having been promised a treat in store for them with a Royal Arcadians appearance. They'd then suffer through lame musical number after dull act, nervously glancing at their watches (if they had one of those newer models with radium-painted glow-in-the-dark hands and numbers that sent so many French and Swiss ladies to an early grave, since they frequently mouthed the radioactive tips of their tiny paint brushes to keep them adequately precise, not knowing any better). First we suffer through THE AUDITION's third-string Phil Emerton "band," then this sad-sack group accompanies a wailing burlesque queen who bumps and grinds without removing anything. Next, Phil's posse is magically transported on-stage, backing a female trio croaking out some Dixie dirge as Steamboat Days film snippets are back-projected. Finally, two guys tumble out of nowhere onto the stage and start tap-dancing, until the Bad Neighborhood Mr. Rogers says that it's all been a collective nightmare, and the Royal Arcadians will NOT appear in this misbegotten travesty after all.

On a lark, I recently picked up a six DVD set of Vitaphone shorts that feature jazz and big band music. "The Audition" is about average for them but stands out a bit because of the amazing dance routine of Larry & Larry.The super-thin plot involves some musical folks supposedly trying out for some big-wig. The music is provided by Phil Emerton's band. You get to see and hear Hannah Williams sing "Get Happy", a song about showboats (which is okay) by the Three X Sisters as well as watch Larry & Larry dance a number that literally looks like you merged tap-dancing with 1980s break-dancing! Many of their moves surprised me, as this seemed decades too early for such dancing. I also liked how they performed this on a wooden floor covered in dirt, as by the time they were finished, they'd gotten progressively dirtier! Pretty wild stuff.

Audition, The (1933) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Warner short has musician Phil Emerton leading his band who are accompanied by a few other acts. Included are Hannah Williams doing "Get HappY", the Three X Sisters doing "Here Comes the Show Boat" and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny". The music is built around the plot of a producer trying to explain how to produce a good movie short. Fans of classic music will want to check this out for the Jazz work of Williams who does a very good job with Get Happy. I'm sure just about everyone has heard at least one version of the song with the one by Judy Garland being the most famous but Williams is a real firecracker here and delivers an electric version full of nice jams. The other acts left me a bit cold with the Three X Sisters coming off more weird than anything else. The Larry & Larry act wasn't too bad but today it seems like something no one would be paying attention to as it was performed during a halftime show at a basketball game.

Wow, a few parts in this short musical were kind of a shock to see. It just shows you how few original things we see, that most things have been done before.Break-dancing in the early 1930s? Yup, they're here in the team of "Larry and Larry," who also reminded me of the famous Nicholas Brothers with all their acrobatic talents mixed in with the tap dancing.Hannah Williams was very, very impressive, too. This woman not only could sing but was a great dancer, too, and part of her "skit" was a marionette-type movie with her legs - something else was "in style" 50 years later! For somebody that isn't well-known, Williams was hot and talented.This short is worth seeing alone just for watching her sing and dance to "Get Happy." This short feature was one of a number back in the '30s that would be played before the feature movie, giving singers and musicians a chance to be heard by a much larger audience. "The Audition" is an apt title, because that's what many of these kind of "shorts" were intended to be.This was a bonus feature on the DVD of the film "The Mayor of Hell," starring James Cagney.