Trouble in Toyland

How to Break 90: #3: Hip Action (1933) is the third installment of a Vitaphone series in which the great golfer Bobby Jones gives game-improving tips, such as how to move the hips for a better backswing, the subject of this episode. Out on the fairway with actors Warner Oland and William B. Davidson, the champion runs into W.C. Fields, observes the comedian's swing, diagnoses his problem as poor hip movement and explains how to correct it cluing in the audience at the same time. One hopes that Fields always broke 90 after this instructive experience. Home Run on the Keys is an offbeat mixture of music and athletics starring baseball giant Babe Ruth, who had retired a couple of years before this 1937 short premiered. During a duck-hunting trip, the legendary slugger and two songwriter friends realize that "hits" of one kind or another - baseball hits or hit tunes - are something they all value. After listening to Ruth reminisce about the time he predicted the direction of a home run in the 1932 World Series, one of the musicians (Zez Confrey) sits at the piano and plays "Kitten on the Keys," which he composed. Ruth then has a brainstorm saying they should write a song that suggests a triumph on the ball field, with chords representing strikes and a glissando representing a home run. Before long, Ruth is in a radio station to sing the newly written number, although what he does is more like talking and waving his arms. Meanwhile, superimposed baseball footage adds visual pizzazz to the performance. Like his singing, Ruth's acting doesn't amount to much, but it's fun to see him try. Some shorts produced under the Vitaphone Varieties banner starred Robert Ripley, the cartoonist and connoisseur of weirdness whose "Believe It or Not" drawings appeared in newspapers for years. In the first of the the Believe It or Not films, released in 1930, he shows the first drawing he ever got published displaying a typical oddity from his collection - miniature furniture items a man put together inside a bottle with long tweezers - and shows how to cut a cigarette paper into a ring large enough to pass through. After a guest demonstrates her ability to read 200 words in 24 seconds, Ripley makes drawings to illustrate his contentions that Abraham was not a Jew, that Albert Einstein flunked math, that a "porcupine fish" can slay a shark - illustrated by an animated sequence - and more. Finally he introduces a little Chinese boy who sings a song. Believe it or not! Trouble in Toyland, directed by Vitaphone stalwart Joseph Henabery, is a 1935 two-reeler featuring Santa Claus, who responds to a children's strike by watching talented kids show off their talents before his throne. The youngsters include Audrey and Wesley Catri, whose tap dancing to "Tappin' on Wood" is quite impressive. Other participants sing songs like "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and "The Hobby Horse Parade." The Hill Sisters do a tumbling act to "Neapolitan Nights," and a girl plays "La Cucaracha" on the accordion. Something for everyone. An All-Colored Vaudeville Show is a 1935 installment in the Vitaphone Pepper Pot series. True to its title, it showcases a string of African-American vaudeville acts, each introduced by a signboard carried by a young woman in a bellhop outfit. First come The 3 Whippets, who tumble up a storm in front of a stage set that Salvador Dalí could have designed. They're followed by Adelaide Hall, who sings and tap dances in high heels. Then the two young Nicholas Brothers continue the tap-dancing motif. And finally, Eunice Wilson sings and dances, accompanied by The Five Racketeers, who make their invigorating racket with four ukuleles and a drum kit. They close the show with "Tiger Rag" joined again by Wilson for one last shimmy. Hold that tiger! Buzzin' Around (1933) stars Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in the last picture of his scandal-destroyed career. He plays Cornelius, a hick who has somehow invented a concoction that makes fragile china totally unbreakable. Eager to sell it to the proprietor of a high-end china shop, Cornelius heads for town. Spotting a beehive on the hood of his broken down jalopy, he disposes of it by tossing in onto an athletic field - where a football team mistakes it for a football - but he swallows a bee, which buzzes like mad in his gullet until a helpful pharmacist gets it out, only to swallow it himself. Cornelius eventually gets to the china emporium discovering too late that his moonshine-loving friend Al accidentally replaced his magical solution with a bottle of ordinary booze. The climax shows that Arbuckle and company can cause as much chaos in a china shop as a dozen bulls; even Pete the Pup, of Our Gang fame, decides to hide. The plot is thin, the slapstick is raucous and Arbuckle is rambunctious. What more could you ask from a Vitaphone two-reeler? The film series called Rambling 'Round Radio Row, produced for Vitaphone by Jerry Wald, started in 1932 and concluded in 1934. The first year's third installment features master of ceremonies J.C. Flippen hosting a broadcast from the beach, where he introduces such notable celebrities as the Four Lombardo Brothers - one of whom is Guy Lombardo, soon to become one of the most celebrated American bandleaders - and Rose Marie, billed as Baby Rose Marie in the 1930s. That was long before she became a grown-up comic actress in movies and TV shows, and her rendition of "Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia," sung to Bill Hall, is vastly more listenable than Hall's own syrupy number. Others on hand are Johnny Marvin, who yodels, and Aunt Jemima, a plus-size entertainer who sings "I Ain't Got Nobody" giving Flippen an excuse for a fat joke in very poor taste. A bit of waterskiing is added to the lineup for no particular reason, and bathing suits are everywhere. Howard Lanin leads the orchestra. The heroine of Hot News Margie (1931) is a reporter who needs to find out if Babe Booth, a famous quarterback, is secretly married to Broadway's hottest showgirl. To get the story Margie barges into a football stadium, and then into a football game, asking for information while remaining oblivious to the tackles and passes happening on every side. In a surprising finale, she ends up dead and when the guardian of the pearly gates finds out she's a tabloid reporter, she's instantly sent down below instead. Made before the advent of Production Code censorship, this 1931 one-reeler serves up mildly spicy jokes about a bigamist with nine wives - he turns out to be a kid in top hat and tails - and a "bullet-proof brassiere" that saved Margie from getting gunned down by gangsters. Marjorie Beebe bubbles over with energy in the title role. Smash Your Baggage is a fast-moving revue featuring Small's Paradise Entertainers, named after a Black-owned, racially integrated Harlem nightclub where the waiters as well as the stage talent danced and sang. The movie's railroad station setting hails from the days when Pullman-porter jobs were more available to African-Americans than many other kinds of employment. During a comical meeting of their employee organization, the members of the Black Knights of the Red Cap decide to raise money for a sick friend by putting on a show in the depot, and therein lies the rest of the picture. A big band wails away - jazz aficionados can look for giants like trumpeter Roy Eldridge, drummer Sid Catlett and trombonist Dicky Wells among the players - and there's a lot of athletic dancing, some of it involving a jump rope. Not much baggage gets smashed, but it's quite a spectacle anyway. As the title indicates, All-Star Vaudeville is a display of talent from the vaudeville circuit. The entertainers include Pat Rooney and Pat Rooney Jr., a father-and-son dance duo, as well as Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields, who sing "Why Don't You Practice What You Preach." The show opens with the On-Wah Troupe, a trio of Chinese contortionists who bend their bodies in amazing ways, and the Runaway Four, a quartet of sailor-suited acrobats who season their act with pantomime and parody. The age of vaudeville had variety galore. How to Break 90: #3: Hip Action Director: George Marshall Cinematographer: Arthur Todd Film Editing: Al Clark Music: Harry Warren With: Bobby Jones, William B. Davidson, W.C. Fields, Warner Oland (themselves), O.B. Keeler (narrator) BW-9m. Home Run on the Keys Director: Roy Mack Producer: Samuel Sax Screenplay: Cyrus D. Wood Cinematographer: Ray Foster Film Editing: Bert Frank Music: Zez Confrey, Byron Gay, Babe Ruth With: Babe Ruth, Zez Confrey, Byron Gay, The Three De Marcos, David Mendoza (themselves) BW-9m. Believe It or Not: #1 Director: Murray Roth With: Robert Ripley BW-9m. Trouble in Toyland Director: Joseph Henabery Producer: Samuel Sax Screenplay: A. Dorian Otvos, George Bennett Cinematographer: Edwin B. PuPar Film Editing: Bert Frank Music: Cliff Hess, Willy White, Cab Calloway, Frank Perkins, Ernest Ball, J.S. Zamecnik, Harry Akst, Sanford Green, Richard A. Whiting, Jean Schwartz, Gerald Marks, Harry Warren With: Dudley Clements (Santa Claus), Roy LeMay, Mar Parish, Jean Parrillo, Nancy Gonzalez, Dickie Larrimore, Joe Benny, Jackie Clune, Julie Meyers, Johnnie Gee (themselves) BW-20m. An All-Colored Vaudeville Show Director: Roy Mack Music: Harry Warren, Cliff Hess, Harry Revel, Fred E. Ahlert, Roy Turk, Edwin B. Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Tony Sbarbaro, Henry Ragas, Larry Shields, John Philip Sousa With: Adelaide Hall, The Nicholas Brothers, The 3 Whippets, Eunice Wilson, The Five Racketeers (themselves) BW-11m. Buzzin' Around Director: Alf Goulding Producer: Samuel Sax Screenplay: Jack Henley, Glen Lambert Cinematographer: E.B. DuPar With: Roscoe ("Fatty") Arbuckle (Cornelius), Al St. John (Al), Gertrude Mudge (mother), Donald MacBride (police officer) BW-20m. Rambling 'Round Radio Row: #3 Director: Jerry Wald Producer: Jerry Wald Screenplay: Jerry Wald Cinematographer: E.B. DuPar Music: Victor Young, Spencer Williams, Johnny Marvin, Harry Warren, Frank Perkins With: J.C. Flippen (master of ceremonies), Bill Hall, The Lombardo Brothers, Baby Rose Marie, Johnny Marvin, Howard Lanin and His Orchestra (themselves) BW-8m. Hot News Margie Director: Alf Goulding Cinematographer: E.B. DuPar With: Marjorie Beebe (Margia), Don Costello (football player), James C. Morton (police officer), Charles C. Wilson (editor), George Offerman Jr. (office boy) BW-7m. Smash Your Baggage Director: Roy Mack Screenplay: A. Dorian Otvos, Sig Herzig Cinematographer: E.B. DuPar Music: Edwin B. Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Tony Sbarbaro, Henry Ragas, Larry Shields, Harty Cook, J. Russel Robinson, Mercer Cook, Jack Pettis, Billy Meyers, Elmer Schoebel, Fats Waller With: Lew Payron, Doris Rubboton, Mabel Scott, Emmett "Babe" Wallace, Rubberlegs Williams (themselves) BW-9m. All-Star Vaudeville Director: Roy Mack Music: Harry Warren, Al Hoffman, Al Goodhart, Maurice Sigler, Walter Donaldson, Egbert Can Slstyne, James V. Monaco, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, J. Bodewalt Lampe With: Blossom Seeley, Benny Fields, Pat Rooney, Pat Rooney Jr., the On-Wah Troup, the Runaway Four, Rose Marie (themselves) BW-11m. by David Sterritt