Customer Reviews

Second Chorus

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

this hal roach studios dvd release of 'second chorus' has to be the best restoration of this film so far. not top of the line spectacular, but very, very good!! on the back cover it says the dvd is "mastered from original 35mm nitrate camera negative", and indeed the images are clean and crisp, no spots, specs, or lines. those who have seen the inferior prints of this film in the past will be pleasantly surprised. it's well worth the money.

for me, astaire is hollywood royalty; a peerless dancer and entertainer. all of astaire's body of work is great --- he never fails to deliver fresh, original interpretations of music through his singing and dancing. his films should be in every dvd library, that's why THIS DVD EDITION is such a find.

and while the film itself is not a classic, it does have some wonderful moments, starting with the toe-tapping tune by the artie shaw orchestra that accompanies the opening credits. this, along with "i ain't hep to that step but i'll dig it" and "love of my life" and the instrumental band music ... they're all upbeat, peppy tunes. it's a shame there's not more of them, they're just great to listen to.

paulette goddard's sweet-tart personality also works well with astaire, and her one dance (a jitterbug!!) with astaire is well done and fun to watch. again, we could use more dancing, even the great astaire has ONE solo dance number. goddard herself was just reaching fullblown stardom at this time (1940). burgess meredith, brilliant as always. artie shaw, charles butterworth and the supporting cast, excellent.

with more music and dance numbers (this film seems to have fewer numbers than your traditional musical), and perhaps better production values (paramount studios would do better by astaire in later films) this could have been a classic musical. but even so, as it is , it's still well worth a look!!!!

If you're looking for a classic Astaire and Rogers movie this is not it. But there is something here worth hearing and seeing.

This is one of those swing era films that can be of real interest to someone who loves the music and musicians of that time. In this movie Astaire and Burgess Meredith are dueling trumpet players. The sound track has the trumpet playing of Billy Butterfield and Bobby Hackett. Also there is the best band of the era, Artie Shaw.

This can be a very rewarding film, if you look and listen for what it really has to offer.

What did Fred Astaire have to say about Second Chorus? "The worst picture I ever worked on."

Looking at it now the movie has some redeeming qualities, but on balance we have a Fred Astaire musical with only two real dance numbers, and the second is near the end of the movie, plus it's a musical with only three songs...and each of the songs has a different composer with Johnny Mercer doing all the lyrics. The musical has the earmarks of an idea that went wrong. Still, if you're an Astaire fan it's worth watching all the way through once, and then using your fast-forward clicker several times to the three musical numbers, which are good.

Trumpet player Danny O'Neill (Fred Astaire) heads The University Perennials, a reasonably successful college band made up of musicians who deliberately fail each year to graduate. His best friend and competitor is a fellow trumpet player, Hank Taylor (Burgess Meredith). They both fall for Ellen Miller (Paulette Goddard), whom they hire to manage the band, and they both compete for a spot with Artie Shaw. There's plenty of plot complications, friendly but under-handed double dealing and lots of misunderstandings. Eventually, Danny and Ellen wind up together, Danny wins a place with Shaw...and probably so does Hank.

The fast-forward button is essential because the plot just goes on and on. What the movie has going for it is Astaire, when he's given the opportunity to dance and to sing, the music of Artie Shaw, trumpet players Bobby Hackett dubbing for Astaire and Billy Butterfield dubbing for Meredith, and Johnny Mercer's lyrics. Mercer collaborated with Shaw on the one romantic swing number Astaire sings to Goddard. It's a knock-out. Unfortunately, the song has been long forgotten, but it's worth the price of the public domain DVD. "Would You Like to Be the Love of My Life?" goes like this:

Would you like to be the love of my life for always,
And always watch over me?
To square my blunders, and share my dreams
One day with caviar, next day a chocolate bar.

Would you like to take the merry go round I'll lead you,
I'll need you, wait and you'll see

I hope in your horoscope
There is room for a dope who adores you,
That would make
The only dreams of my life come true,
For the love of my life is you.

Astaire's dance number with Goddard to "I Ain't Hep to That Step But I'll Dig It" (music by Hal Borne) is a fast charmer. Goddard was no dancer, and it's interesting to see how cleverly Astaire positions her to make her look good. What's frustrating is that one number that evidently was very good was cut to make more time for the story and for Artie Shaw and his band. The number was called "Me and the Ghost Upstairs" with music by Bernard Hanighen and words by Mercer. Hermes Pan danced the part of the ghost. The number was filmed but the only things that survive, as far as I know, are a couple of rehearsal out-takes and the song track by Astaire. It features some of Mercer's cleverest lyrics:

Once upon a midnight dreary
While I pondered weak and weary
From a long trip on the Erie
Comes a rappin' on my chamber door

It's an ectoplasmic tapping
That disturbs my nightly napping
Like a shroud that's gently flapping
Emanating from the second floor

Buddies are we, me and the ghost upstairs
Sipping our tea, me and the ghost upstairs
But he's inclined to moan when left alone
So I think of things that'll tickle his funny bone

Lonely old ghost upstairs

Regular folks, droppin' our worldly cares
Swappin' our jokes, me and the ghost upstairs
And then he slaps his shroud and laughs out loud
And says "Oh boy, that'll paralyze all the crowd"

Jolly old ghost upstairs

He's quite a cook, he serves a beautiful drink
He wrote a book and in invisible ink
I took a look and the title 'pon the page
Was 'The Groups of Wraith'

Once in a while he brings a gang of friends
Does it in style, careless of what he spends
And though the place is small we have a ball
'Cause you know those spooks don't require no room at all

We have some mighty fine affairs
Me and the ghost upstairs
We have some mighty fine affairs
Me and the ghost upstairs.

My copy of the movie is from Passport Video. It's watchable but not much more than that. There are chapter stops but they aren't keyed to the musical numbers, which is an irritation. Still, if you're an Astaire completeist (and I am) and like Johnny Mercer and Artie Shaw, you might want this. And don't forget "Would You Like to Be the Love of My Life." It really is a first-class, sophisticated, swinging love song.

Bad. The songs are only okay, and the dances are pretty bad for Fred Astaire. Astaire later said it was the worst movie he ever made. I agree with him 100 percent.

I usually love Fred Astaire movies eventough they are lacking the the plot area, but this one is the worst. The only memorable song is "Would You Like to be the Love of My Life", the dancing isn't anything to rave about (infact there isn't much), and the quality of the picture itself is poor. When the movie ends you sit there thinking "what was that?" IF you want to see a Fred Astaire film see Top Hat or Easter Parade, but not this, it is depressingly bad.

"Second Chorus" is not a widely known film, but it will probably be enjoyable to any fan of Fred Astaire. If you're not particularly fond of Astaire, you might want to pass on this one since seeing Astaire in action in an unusual role is the main attraction. The story is that Danny O'Neill (Fred Astaire) and Hank Taylor (Burgess Meredith) are leaders of a band. The two have been intentionally failing in college, because they like the atmosphere, and also because as long as they are officially students they can spend their time running the band and making a pretty good living at it. When Ellen Miller (Paulette Goddard) enters the picture, they both get greedy and want her attention for themselves. Thus they each double-cross the other and both wind up getting expelled from the university, thus ending their cozy arrangement with their band. They spend most of the rest of the film continuing to double-cross one another, this time over trying to get into Artie Shaw's band as well as trying to win over the affections of Ellen, who now works for Shaw. In the end, Danny and Hank patch things up and decide to work together, with good results coming from their teamwork.

The things that are not so great about this film are mainly the quality of the video, the less than great comic timing, and the tiresome scenes with J. Lester Chisholm, played by Charles Butterworth. Mr. Butterworth is no Edward Everett Horton, and as a less-than-adequate character actor you just want to shoo the guy off stage every time he turns up. Also, if you're watching this film to see lots of Astaire's wonderful dancing, you'll likely be somewhat disappointed. He does do some singing and dancing, but this film mainly shows off his comic abilities, of which the mischievous Astaire has plenty. This part would have been better if the comic timing of the script had been tighter, though.

As for the second feature, "That's Dancing" is a documentary made in 1985 along the same lines of "That's Entertainment". However, in my humble opinion "That's Entertainment" did it before and did it better. Actually, this documentary seems a bit drawn out and lacks the excitement of its predecessor. However, you do get to see some good shots of Astaire and others doing some pretty impressive dancing. Considering the low cost of this double feature, for the ardent Astaire fan it is probably worth it.

This movie was an interesting one. I've always liked Fred Astaire in anything he did, but this one was not so good. Paulette Goddard co-stars as a business manager for Artie Shaw (Artie Shaw is in most of the movie)and Fred is trying to get to play his trumpet in with Artie's band or he just wants to play anywhere. Burgess Meredith, who I also like plays Fred's room mate, and he too is trying to play and be discovered by somebody important. Even though this movie has some great stars, and even though this movie has some very funny scenes the whole movie is pretty bad in general.

Alpha Video is one of those companies that copies film-based movies directly to DVD with no digital remastering of either the video or audio. As a result, the video jumped at times and spots blinked across the screen. Most of the dialogue sounded like people talking inside a large tin can lined with acoustic insulation.

The plot and characters did not age very well. It may have been funny at one time, but having two friends, O'Neill and Taylor (played by Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith, respectively) lying and conniving against each other for the motives of lust and greed made the entire movie disappointing. Even the one sympathetic character, Mr. Chisholm (played by Charles Butterworth) got drawn into this "comic" device when he decided to use his position as concert sponsor to force his unwanted musical abilities on Artie Shaw.

Paulette Goddard's character Ellen Miller did women a disservice by pretending to put her foot down when she had an opportunity to display common sense and tell the two "friends" she did not want to see them again, after they used her friendship to gain auditions with Shaw and then embarrassed her with their unprofessional antics onstage. Instead, she keeps letting them get her into trouble, almost causing Chisholm to return home with his sponsorship money by making him think Ellen was married to Taylor. They finally almost see the error of their ways and put their lying and conniving to good use by convincing Chisholm that their latest scam was all a misunderstanding and persuading him to recommit to the concert.

Adding to the disappointment is the fact that Astaire had only two dance numbers, one with Goddard (she's no Ginger Rogers) and a solo dance at the end of the movie.

It sort of comes out okay in the end, but the idea that a woman's love can make a bad guy turn good has resulted in many women choosing to remain in abusive and even lethal relationships. Sorry, but I don't find this to be a very valuable theatrical device anymore. At least "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" did not pretend to be other than what it was.

If you want to view the movie, rent a copy until one of the better DVD production companies releases a properly remastered version.

If "Second Chorus" were a minor-studio B-movie and had been come out before Fred Astaire, Paulette Goddard, Artie Shaw, and Burgess Meredith (to say nothing of lyricist Johnny Mercer) had really made names for themselves, it could pass as an overlooked, affectionately regarded little gem. Since all of them had already scored quite considerable successes, with Astaire and Shaw in particular having achieve truly stellar heights, how they ended up participating in this very minor, not very adept piece of light moviemaking is a mystery. If you love Fred Astaire and Artie Shaw, you will want to see it, and they (along with the others mentioned, and Charles Butterworth) do not completely fail to provided amusement, but you will be painfully embarrassed on their behalf to see them trapped in a project so far beneath their talents. I do want to thank the Amazon reviewer who clued the rest of us in to the restored print used in the DVD from Hal Roach Studios: the quality of that release is light years beyond some others I have seen.

This DVD is of the same quality as I have found on the other Second Chorus DVDs I have purchased....fair. I have 3 different DVDs of this movie. All the versions of this film I have seen are dupes of a poor quality original. All are a little dark, have faded quality and on one DVD the sound was poor. If there is a restored version of this movie out there somewhere, it is a secret.