I would hope that Wonder Bar, the film from which "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule" is taken, will be released in a package supplementing the eventual release of The Jazz Singer. If it's not released then, it surely never will be.

That`s the scene which opens "The Celluloid Closet," isn`t it?

I haven't seen Wonder Bar but Roman Scandals was originally released a few months earlier, and it's definitely a non-"backstage" Berkeley.

I saw the latter at the Castro theatre's Berkeley mini-fest last December. It was the only pre-code film in the series not contained in this box set. A very nice-looking print, perhaps it will be in an upcoming box.

Alas, Roman Scandals is a Samuel Goldwyn film. We'll probably never see it on DVD.

I wonder. I thought the same thing until several years ago when nearly all of Eddie Cantor's films were released on Laserdisc.
I was hopeful when Sony announced Kid Millions last year but then it got delayed...so at least there seems to be some interest in the films. I wouldn't be surprised if Whoopee was the first one to get a DVD release.

The Goldwyn copyrighted stuff is very curious. A couple of titles turned up in R4 through Rank (of all people) in R4 in 1999. I had a feeling Paramount might have had original copyright claim on things like Whoopee!, but who knows? There are certainly restored archival prints wiht the two-strip bits available. From what I've seen Whoopee looks like a total dog.

EDIT: should make it clear the Goldwyn R4 titles had passed through Goldwyn jnr. of course.

Fantastic review over at DVDTimes:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=61179

Go watch some Busby trailers here:

http://tcmdb.com/participant/participan ... ameId=null

Finally gone through this set and besides being completely in love with it, I think its extras give plenty of evidence that we will see Warner revisiting the Berkeley zone in the future with these titles:

Fashions of 1934
Wonder Bar
In Caliente
Gold Diggers of 1937
Gold Diggers in Paris

There's also a documentary on Berkeley still to make its way onto DVD, so it would be nice to find it on an extra disc:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0139090/

I was surprised the doco wasn't part of the collection (Hugh Hefner may own rights (?)), but I seriously doubt a second set from Warner.

Not sure who owns the Goldwyn catalogue at the moment, but the pre-code Eddie Cantor pic The Kid from Spain should be highly sought after by all Busby buffs. All his wonderful obsessions come to the fore in opening number But We Must Rise (!) where he is allowed to do what he wants with the Goldwyn Girls in a school dorm with swimming pool.
[spoiler] It's all cleavage, calves and backsides, wet and dry, for five heavenly minutes as bobbed-haired beauties (look quickly for Paulette Godard) wake-up from silk-swanned slumber, throw on black high heels during pillow fights, climb stairs to strip into a first floor deco pool (still with black heels on), climb out ever-so-slowly to slide down (yes, slide down) to holy-cow, we can see it all see-though blinds to dry off with tiny towels and finally back to bed to lounge and compare thighs while getting dressed in all white suspenders and bras (still with black heels on).[/spoiler] Yes, I've had the number memorized for nearly 20 years.

Also sought after would be the delirous Hollywood Hotel from 1937. The fetish-crazed production numbers are gone, but the energy and breeze remain as we run around backstage Hollywood with the giants of Swing. Warner own this one, but is rare indeed.

That sounds like Pre-Code Heaven to me! Would love to see it someday. BTW, can anyone kind of describe the Wonder Bar number "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule" to me without spoiling it too much? I've also never seen it, plus it was conspicuously left out of the extra disc so this is now a kind of little Holy Grail to me. Anyone?

Annie/Myra

WonderBar turns up occasionally on TCM (OZ) so I'll copy it one day, but from memory Hoin' to Heaven is really just another Joslon in blackface routine, with a mule and a demeaning (even for those days) song. The sort of stuff he made a career from.

Here's a nice article about it:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/ ... onder.html

Oh, it's so much better than David makes it out to be. Jolson, in blackface, dies and goes to Heaven. When he arrives (yes, on a mule) at "de pearly gates," heaven is populated entirely by black folks happily eating watermelon, shooting craps, and singing. This being Berkeley, you can easily imagine the chorus lines emerging from and tapdancing on oversized slices of watermelon. The finale of the 10-minute number shows at least a hundred black angels, all enjoying freedom and plenty in paradise as they float on a vast expanse of fluffy clouds.

Yes, it's offensive. Yes, it's retrograde. Yes, it's appalling. But it's not hateful. It's also a fabulously conceived piece of entertainment and, if one can get past one's white liberal guilt about enjoying a blackface performance, the absolute height of minstrelsy as an art form (though the song lyrics are pretty awful). I find Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland's blackface routine from Babes on Broadway to be much more offensive.

Although this number overshadows everything else in the movie, there is also a fine bit of pansy humor and not a little "hot-blooded Spaniard" stereotyping. It hits all the marks.

Don't ask me how I come up with this (let's just say serendipity is a close friend -- I go looking for one thing and I find another one even better!) but I just found out that Wonder Bar is available in Brazil on DVD! It comes as part of a second volume of films dedicated to none other than... Al Jolson! Here are the links:

http://www.2001video.com.br/detalhes_pr ... duto=13491
http://www.2001video.com.br/detalhes_pr ... duto=13490

God forbid I should be seen as PC! Of course Matt's obviously seen it more recently than me. I simply don't remember how "Berkleyan" it really is.

But it offers another chance to blow the trumpet for the still unreleased collection of musical Vitaphone shorts by black artists that came out in 95 on Laserdisc. Theses two reelers would have all probably only played to black audiences - certainly I can glean absolutely no evidence of their being shown outside the US during the 30s. And their history in American 30s cinema is desperately underwritten.

The artists included Lewis Lunceford, Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters and the Nicholas Brothers. One of the earliest shorts, "Rufus Jones for President" during which Ethel mrumurs about marijuana rent parties and lazy "goodfornothins" is potentially totally inflammatory until you realize the whole thing is done with tongue firmly in cheek. Certainly Id be the last person to take offence at "Mule" - I just don''t like Jolson at all. In particular the way he capitalizes on black music to make it "acceptable" to white audiences. Next to Wini Shaw he's nothing.

Yeah, Jolson's the least interesting thing about Wonder Bar. I'm looking forward to Warners' big Jazz Singer release, but only because it will undoubtedly contain a shitload of early sound rarities. I wonder if they'll ever get around to releasing a disc of Don Juan (the first feature with a synched Vitaphone soundtrack) with the program of shorts that played with it (which were far better than the feature). I thought we'd be getting that in August since it's the 80th anniversary of the premiere, but no dice.

Warners has said that they have no plans for a set of Vitaphone shorts, that they want to keep sticking them on DVDs as supplements. I suppose that works (there are certainly discs I've held onto or even bought just because of a particular short), but they're missing a real opportunity to provide something very historically important to libraries and what not.

Anyway, a few of those black Vitaphone shorts showed up on the recent spate of black musicals (Hallelujah, Cabin in the Sky, et al) released by Warner. Hallelujah has Pie, Pie Blackbird, which is my favorite because it has Eubie Blake and his band playing inside a giant pie. It also features the Nicholas Brothers and Nina Mae McKinney. They're also in the other short on the disc, The Black Network which is good, but not nearly as amusing.

The disc of Green Pastures has Rufus Jones for President on it as well as An All-Colored Vaudeville Show (with the Nicholas Brothers again and Eunice Wilson). This is a "Vitaphone Pepper Pot" short - a titling I love but which is unfortunately no doubt inspired by the common color of pepper. Maybe I just like it because it reminds me of when the New York Post called Monica Lewinsky a "portly pepper-pot."

The disc of Astaire and Rogers' Follow the Fleet has the short Melody Master: Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra and it is blazing hot.

That's interesting, Matt. I had noticed Warner were including shorts not actually released on that five disc LD box with their Musicals. I AM glad they did the Rufus Jones on Green Pastures - good news this.

The Lunceford set on the Astaire Rogers disc is also not on the LD box. (Of course I should have made it clear this box is composed of one disc of black performers, with the other four mostly white, with a few crossover gigs, each thematically grouped under "Big Band", "Swing", "Niteclub" etc.) I can't verify but feel certain the black shorts were done for segregated black audiences. Thank god we've still got the films.

One of the most fascinating things about the white bands, including the fantastic Artie Shaw number "Symphony in Swing" is how much white musicians were influenced by black music, and how they skated past censorship - to the point of Artie's horn player and soloist, Tony Pastor doing "Jeepers Creepers" while wearing a coke spoon around his neck!

I remember there had been much enthusiasm with the first LD release for a second volume but sales were disastrous. NO one seemed to care.

According to The Vitaphone Project (a project I adore but who site pains me), there were two LD sets, A 70th Anniversary Celebration and Swing, Swing Swing. I was a laserdisc buyer but I still never heard of these until years later. They must not have been in the Ken Crane's catalog.

Matt, as I recall the 70 Year Celebration was non musical shorts (comedy routines, etc) - at least I think it was because I decided to only buy the Swing Set after reading the reviews from that old Laserisc news;letter that used to publish out of NYState. Curiously I did get it from KenCranes.

FWIW, TCM had an 80th Anniversary showing of the original Vitaphone premiere (Don Juan, the Will Hays prologue, and all the musical numbers). Not sure if this means anything at all, but could be that Warner might include those as extras on a Don Juan DVD -- or possibly The Jazz Singer.

BTW, I really dug Hays' delivery style -- especially the maniacal lifting of arms towards the end of his prologue. Reminded me of a Bond villain....

Your wishes are granted. Here's what Warner had to say about it on this week's online chat with the folks of HTF:


Fingers crossed for the inclusion (and possible chat ommition) of Fashions of 1934. As for Wonder Bar, my bets are that it will be included on a future Al Jolson set.

I know this doesn't help you, Lino, but for any basic cable-equipped Americans wondering what all the fuss is about Wonder Bar, it's getting one of its increasingly rare airings on TCM in June.

So my mate and I watched Wonder Bar this morning and you know what? It's pretty awesome and pretty ridiculous that such simple fun is being hidden like dirty laundry. Hardly the best of the Berkeley musicals - it's more or less on the level of Dames - but it's compact, charming and Jolson is, well unstoppable.

Especially when he does the fag gags.