Product Details

• Format: Box set, Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 4
• Studio: Kino International
• VHS Release Date: August 26, 1997
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6304557108
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,041 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the price!, March 23, 2001

By 

Brenna E. Lorenz "heptune" (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hollywood Rhythm Boxed Set [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a four-volume set of shorts filmed from 1929 to 1941, and includes 31 films. Overall, the quality of these films is excellent. I have copies of some of these shorts in other collections, but the sound and visual quality are better in this set than in my other collections. In the first volume, you get to see Helen Kane, the inspiration for Betty Boop, and Mae Questal, the actress who provided the voice for Betty Boop in the Fleischer cartoons. It is fascinating to see and hear these two women who made Betty Boop possible. Also on this volume are interviews with Mack Gordon, Harry Revel and Hoagy Carmichael. We also get a look at college life in Meet the Boyfriend, starring Lillian Roth (very funny, and lots of ocarinas). The set includes a number of Bing Crosby shorts as well, one of which is on the first volume.The second volume is loaded with treasures, including the famous 1929 Duke Ellington short, "Black and Tan Fantasy" with Fredi Washington and Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon. Also included are a Boop-like Ginger Rogers, Cab Calloway, Artie Shaw, more Bing Crosby, and the great Fats Waller. Fats performs "Ain't Misbehavin'," and of course, he misbehaves throughout the piece. One of the most fascinating films on this video is an interview with Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with performances of several of their compositions. Volume 3 of the set includes another Duke Ellington film, "Symphony in Black," featuring 18-year-old Billie Holiday, as well as Duke's "Bundle of Blues." We also get a superb copy of Cab Calloway's "Jitterbug Party." Most notable is the 1929 Bessie Smith short, "St. Louis Blues," filmed on the same day and on the same set as Duke's "Black and Tan Fantasy," with many of the same character actors and same choir. (James P. Johnson is on the piano, but they never show him.) Other pieces feature Bing Crosby, Vincent Lopez, George Dewey Washington, and Ethel Merman. Volume 4 features the famous Louis Armstrong short in which he appears in a leopard skin in a mass of soap bubbles. This film features bit parts by Victoria Spivey and Sidney Easton. In other films, we see Anna Chang, Cary Grant, Eddie Cantor, Eddie Younger, Nina Martini and Rosita Moreno, Ethel Merman, and Rudy Vallee with Mae Questal. This is altogether a delicious collection of historically significant films.