Customer Reviews

Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts

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As the title states, this is a "catalogue" of films given Vitaphone reference numbers. Included are major features from "Don Juan" to "Woodstock", along with the animated Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies (excluding Private Snafu). However, the information on these is quite brief. You'll need to check out Clive Hirschorn's "The Warner Bros. Story", Leonard Maltin's "Of Mice And Magic" and Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald's "A Complete Guide" if that's what you're seeking.

No matter. The primary focus (and the reason this book is a valuable reference) concerns the studio's "live-action short subjects". Apart from the equally expen$ive US Copyright (Library Of Congress) textbooks and the 1972 "Selected Short Subjects" (another Maltin book), there is virtually NOTHING out there concerning this vastly neglected genre. Need to identify all of the "Sports Parade" one-reelers not listed on the Internet Movie Database? Here's your source. Also included are a number of shorts not registered for copyright or given a proper theatrical release.

A quick glance reveals that Warner Bros./Vitaphone rivaled Universal and Paramount as the most prolific Hollywood short producer of the 1920s and '30s (although a great many were actually filmed in New York). They utilized synchronized sound a full year before "The Jazz Singer" (another Warner film) and the '20s shorts showcase all of the biggest vaudeville and pop music stars of the period. Technicolor production starts at the Hollywood/Burbank facilities in 1929 and increases after "full" 3-color was available for "Good Morning Eve" and other 1934 Leon Errol and El Brendel comedy-musicals. After New York's Vitaphone facilities close in 1940, there are still many glossy featurettes and musicals churning out in California like "Jammin' The Blues" and "Star In The Night", along with the wonderful Joe McDoakes comedies. However, the post war emphasis seams to be on documentaries (those "Sports Parades" were pretty cheap to make, despite being filmed in color); the last original series were CinemaScope "Scope Gem" travelogues from 1955-57. The sixties saw the declining years of Daffy Duck and Cool Cat and a few independent documentaries. (Good thing the studio had "Bonnie And Clyde".)

OK. It is easy to be nit-picky about this book. As great as those film stills are, it would have been even better if some post-1935 pics were also included. Also, the text gets a little sloppy in places: for example, not all of the Technicolor shorts are identified as such. I'm thinking that author Liebman was initially limited in his resources and should consider publishing a "revised" update with additional information, especially since Turner Classic Movies and Warner Home Video's DVDs are only now making available all of those miniature nuggets that once played along-side "Casablanca" and Bugs Bunny.