The film was styled in the same format as the earlier Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The high budget of the film meant that although it performed well at the box office, it did not return as much profit as The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The Show of Shows was originally meant to be and advertised as being an all-color talking movie; however, twenty-one minutes were in black and white—17 minutes of the first part and the first four minutes of part two.
The film features nearly all the stars then working under contract at Warner Bros. Virtually all the performers shown would vanish from the studio by 1931, after tastes had shifted owing to the effects of the Great Depression, which began to be felt late in 1930.
The Show of Shows features many of the performers who were popular in silent movies mixed in with hand-picked stage stars and novelty acts. The emcee of the film was Frank Fay, who performed in the style of barbed sarcasm. In an era of almost naive optimism, he stands out as a witty devil's advocate.[3]
Segments
Prologue — In a scene set in the French Revolution, Hobart Bosworth as an executioner and H.B. Warner as an aristocrat who is executed on a guillotine. This opening serves to show that traditional stage shows are finished. Up until 1929, most big cities had added stage acts before silent movies. These were costly, and sound films would make them mostly obsolete. As the aristocrat tries to speak, he is interrupted by the executioner, who rants that they have heard his remarks too often and it is time for him to be gone. After the blade falls, the executioner joyously shouts: "Prologue is Dead! On with the Show of Shows!"
"Military March"— Led by Monte Blue and Pasadena American Legion Fife and Drum Corps. A pageant set entirely on a huge set of steps with the cadets changing formation to provide a series of color effects in a manner that would be popularized much later by Busby Berkeley.
"Motion Picture Pirates" — Featuring Ted Lewis with a fantasy number set of a pirate ship headed by cut-throat Noah Beery and Tully Marshall with Wheeler Oakman, Kalla Pasha, and other well-known movie villains of the era. A group of beautiful girls are captured and saved from an awful fate (almost) by light comedian Johnny Arthur sending up Douglas Fairbanks. The pirates literally blow him overboard. Finally, the day is saved by Ted Lewis, a well-known bandleader at that time who had recently appeared in his own starring vehicle for Warner Bros., Is Everybody Happy? (1929), a film now deemed lost. His trademark was a battered top hat, and his signature tune was "Me and My Shadow".
"Dear Little Pup" — Performed by Frank Fay. (Shot in black and white.)
"Ping Pongo" — Performed by Winnie Lightner. (Shot in black and white.)
"The Only Song I Know" — Performed by Nick Lucas. (Shot in black and white.)
"If I Could Learn to Love (As Well as I Fight)" — In a brief introductory sequence, missing from circulating prints, French lightweight boxer Georges Carpentier is introduced by Frank Fay, who provokes Carpentier into lightly tapping him with his formidable hands, to which Fay comically overreacts and then beats a hasty retreat. Carpentier was briefly promoted as a star in the Maurice Chevalier mold. He sings here against an Eiffel Tower backdrop accompanied by Patsy Ruth Miller and Alice White and later a singing and dancing chorus of girls. Ultimately, all of them remove their street clothes to reveal athletic togs underneath, and a precision dance routine follows with the participants positioned on an upright series of geometric struts. (This segment is missing from the version currently airing on Turner Classic Movies.)
"Recitations" — Featuring Beatrice Lillie, Louise Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton, and Frank Fay. A series of stark poetic recitations that are first performed by each performer whole and then line by line, until when mixed up they form a bizarre and suggestive product. The sequence also includes a parody of the M-G-M song "Your Mother and Mine" and a series of purposely lame and pointless practical jokes.
"Meet My Sister" — Introduced by a deliberately nervous Richard Barthelmess followed by Hollywood sisters, including Dolores and Helene Costello, singing "My Sister", along with Loretta Young and Sally Blane, Sally O'Neil and Molly O'Day, Alice Day and Marceline Day, Marion Byron and Harriette Lake (later known as Ann Sothern), Viola Dana and Shirley Mason, Lola and Armida Vendrell, and Alberta and Adamae Vaughn. All of the pairs were sisters in real life except for Marion Byron and Harriette Lake, who were not related. The song is partly compromised by having each set of 'twins' representing a different country against a backdrop serving to illustrate each in a display of international stereotypes (Note: this number exists in color from a nitrate full aperture reel held at the BFI National Film Archive).
Intermission— Title Card (missing from some prints)
"Chinese Fantasy" — Introduced, via sharp barks, by canine performer Rin Tin Tin, with Nick Lucas singing "Li-Po-Li" and Myrna Loy dancing. (This sequence survives in color.)
"If Your Best Friend Won't Tell You (Why Should I?)" — Sid Silvers back with Frank Fay singing about the horrors of halitosis.
"Larry Ceballos' Black and White Girls" — Introduced by Sid Silvers and danced by chorus girls dressed up in black and white dresses. One half of the girls wear outfits with black fronts and white backs (with corresponding wigs) while the others wear outfits exactly the reverse. As the girls turn about in formation, the lines of dancers switch from white to black or form geometric patterns. Music instrumental "Jumping Jack". A reworking of an almost identical dance routine set to "The Doll Dance", which also appeared in the 1928 two-reeler Larry Ceballos' Roof Garden Revue. As an after piece, the dance appears to begin again but is halted by Louise Fazenda as the "Dancing Delegate" complaining about the costumes and demanding that Fay be brought on stage – which happens so rapidly that he appears without his pants.
"Your Love Is All I Crave" — A torch song of lost love sung by Frank Fay. Fay introduces the number with a topical series of jokes: He describes being in a play where the entire cast entered dressed in rags ("It was a futuristic piece"). He also tweaks his own image: "The leading lady called to me: "My Stalwart Youth" ... (I was heavily made up)...."
"Lady Luck" — The film's finale that is over a quarter of an hour. The original Technicolor version starts with Alexander Gray singing a full-blooded version of the song "Lady Luck" inside an enormous ballroom set with huge windows revealing a midnight green sky. Tap dancers (both white and black groups) dance on a highly polished wooden floor. This all ends as Betty Compson walks down the full length of the stage in procession to meet Alexander Gray, and with the whole cast assembled, hundreds of colored streamers drop from the roof as "Lady Luck" reaches a finale.
"Curtain of Stars" — With the cast appearing with their heads poked through holes in canvas singing "Lady Luck".
According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $1,259,000 domestically and $336,000 internationally.[2]
Out-takes
Three specialty acts were filmed for the feature-length revue but deleted from the final release print. Each was released separately in 1930 as a Vitaphone short subject:
Evolution of the Dance (February 1930, Technicolor, 12 minutes). A pageant of performers offering various styles of dance, featuring the comically clumsy Lupino Lane in a hobo ensemble. Dance directors Larry Ceballos and Jack Haskell received screen credit in the short subject, but featured performer Lupino Lane did not.[4]
Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet (March 1930, black-and-white, 6 minutes). The British entertainer apologizes to the audience for his unscheduled appearance (two of his remarks referring to the Show of Shows revue were deleted), and explains that he is an emergency replacement for one of the Glee Quartet. The group presents "The Fox Has Left His Lair", but the singers accompanying him perform so briskly that Buchanan gets flustered and tries desperately to keep up. [5][6]
Beatrice Lillie (March 1930, black-and-white, 6 minutes). Lillie sings about men. She is interrupted by young male dancers, followed by old male dancers, followed by midget male dancers. Lillie was angered that this sequence, staged with low and obvious comedy, was released as a short subject. She sued Warner Bros. for $50,000 because the short "presented her to the world as a cheap and inconsequential performer." She lost the suit, appealed the verdict, and finally lost again in 1934.[7]
Certain segments in color of the film have been recovered.[9] As of June 2018, these are as follows (in the order of their presentation in the film):
1. "Meet My Sister" – Sequence was shown publicly at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival.[10]
2. "Chinese Fantasy" – Entire sequence is present in commercially available copies of the film.
3. "Frank Fay With Sid Silvers" – An announcement was made in July 2017 by the Vitaphone Project that portions of this sequence have been recovered, and preservation is ongoing.
4. "A Bicycle Built For Two" – An announcement was made in July 2017 by the Vitaphone Project that portions of this sequence have also been recovered, and preservation is ongoing.
5. "If Your Best Friend Won't Tell You" – An announcement was made in July 2017 by the Vitaphone Project that portions of this sequence have also been recovered, and preservation is ongoing.
6. "King Richard III" – At least one Technicolor specimen frame is known to exist. This sequence should not be confused with a color test John Barrymore made for RKO in 1933; that test involved a recitation from "Hamlet."[11]
7. "Finale" – A six-minute segment of this sequence was shown publicly in Australia ca. 1978; this particular print is believed to have been destroyed in the late 1980s. The British Film Archive has extracts from this scene along with snippets from other early film musicals.[12] At least one Technicolor specimen frame from this sequence is known to exist.
8. "Curtain of Stars" – A four-second segment of this sequence was restored by the George Eastman House.[13]
The Library of Congress maintains a copy (since the 1970s) of the black/white version.[14]
In 2022, an unofficial reconstructed Colorized version was uploaded online. It appears to be colorization by artificial intelligence, and does not display the real Technicolor footage.[15]
^ abcdWarner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 10 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
^Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN0-634-00765-3 page 11
^Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress, (<-book title) p.165 c.1978 the American Film Institute
