Vitaphone, literally from the Latin for "living" and "sound", made a specialty of producing short subjects with sound, even before the famous partial talkie, The Jazz Singer, was released. That's right, Vitaphone, using phonograph recordings synced up with the image, released sound shorts over a year before The Jazz Singer was even released. Shorts weren't always meant to be mini-feature films either. There were no plots or characters, just jokes and singing, recording the acts of some of the era's finest Vaudeville performers.
The lineup of shorts:
Rose Marie in 'Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder' (1929)
Georgie Price in 'Don't Get Nervous' (1929)
Burns and Allen in 'Lambchops' (1929)
As a teenager and adult, Rose Marie was a nightclub performer, radio comedian, movie actress and sitcom regular. But as a child she was Baby Rose Marie, a pert little singer with a surprisingly strong voice and a precociously mature manner. At age three she was performing and at age six she was doing radio and movies, including some Vitaphone shorts. Baby Rose Marie: The Child Wonder is a straightforward showcase for her limited but real talent, featuring three songs and zillions of coy gesticulations. Although she frequently glances off camera during her act, maybe getting visual prompts from a coach or parent, she seems sure of herself and of what she needs to do. As child wonders go, she's quite the charmer.
Don't Get Nervous is a Vitaphone movie about a Vitaphone movie being made. More precisely it's a comedy on that subject, wherein vaudeville star Georgie Price arrives at the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn to film his act, but hesitates to perform because he won't have a live audience to inspire him. To remedy the situation, the movie crew - several men, one lone woman - line up behind the camera politely applauding to encourage the reluctant star. The rest of the picture shows Price singing two songs, "Hello, Sunshine, Hello" and "Sweetheart's Holiday," very much in the Al Jolson manner and bantering with the studio gang. Bryan Foy, who ran the short-subject department at Warner Bros., appears as the director of the one-reeler, which provides one of the few filmed records of Price's popular act. Despite the title, nobody seems nervous.
Two of the finest Vaudeville performers of the era were George Burns and Gracie Allen, the husband and wife team that delighted audiences for years on stage and screen. Burns was the straight man and Allen delivered the punchlines. In Lambchops (1929), the two wander onto the set looking under tables and chairs, and behind curtains, until George points to the camera and says, "There they are," implying it was the audience they were looking for all along. That's all the setup you get. After that, it's nothing but jokes and a little music before the camera fades out. And that's all people were looking for, the chance to see famous stage performers doing their act onstage. Only now, you could see it in your own hometown.
