On with the Show! (1929 film)

On with the Show! is a 1929 American pre-Code musical film produced by Warner Bros. Filmed in two-color Technicolor, the film became the first all-talking, all-color feature-length film, and the second color film released by Warner Bros.; the first was the partly color musical The Desert Song (1929).

Plot

With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box-office revenue has been stolen and the leading lady refuses to appear.

Cast

Songs

• "Welcome Home": Music by Harry Akst, lyrics by Grant Clarke, performed by Henry Fink and chorus, danced by the Four Covans
• "Let Me Have My Dreams": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, performed by Josephine Huston (with Betty Compson and Sally O'Neil on screen)
• "Am I Blue?": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, performed by Ethel Waters and the Harmony Four Quartette
• "Lift the Juleps to Your Two Lips": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Henry Fink, Josephine Huston and chorus and danced by the Four Covans
• "In the Land of Let's Pretend": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Mildred Carroll and chorus
• "Don't It Mean a Thing to You?": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Josephine Huston and danced by Marion and Madeline Fairbanks
• "Birmingham Bertha": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, performed by Ethel Waters, dancing by Angelus Babe
• "Wedding Day": Music by Akst, lyrics by Clarke, sung by Henry Fink, Arthur Lake, Josephine Huston and chorus
• "Bridal Chorus" (from Lohengrin): Music by Richard Wagner, played at the beginning of the finale

Production and promotion

Warner Bros. promoted On with the Show! as filmed in "natural color." This was the first in a series of Warner Bros. contracted color films.

The film generated much interest in Hollywood and virtually overnight, most other major studios began filming in the color process. The film would be eclipsed by the far greater success of the second Technicolor film, Gold Diggers of Broadway. (Song of the West was completed first, but its release was delayed until March 1930).

Reception

Box office

The film was a box-office hit, with a worldwide gross of more than $2 million.

According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $1,741,000 domestically and $674,000 internationally.

Critical

Reviews from critics were mixed. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times wrote that the film was "to be felicitated on the beauty of its pastel shades, which were obtained by the Technicolor process, but little praise can be accorded its story or to its raucous voices....It would have been better if this film had no story, and no sound, for it is like a clumsy person arrayed in Fifth Avenue finery." Variety reported that the film was "too long in running", but was nevertheless "impressive, both as an entertainment and as a talker." Film Daily called it "fine entertainment and a very adroit mixture of comedy, some rather bad pathos and musical comedy numbers." The New York Herald Tribune declared it "the best thing the films have done in the way of transferring Broadway music shows to the screen and, even if the story is bad and the entire picture considerably in need of cutting it is an admirable and frequently handsome bit of cinema exploring." John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that the film was "completely undistinguished for wit, charm, or novelty, except that it is done in color. Possibly in the millennium all movies will be colored. In these early days of the art, however, not much can be said for it, except that it is not really distressing."

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • "Am I Blue?" – Nominated

Preservation

One reel of the 35mm color nitrate print of On With the Show exists at the BFI archive. Only black-and-white prints have survived from the remainder of the film. A fragment of an original color print lasting about 20 seconds surfaced in 2005. Other original color fragments were discovered in 2014. A copy of the black-and-white version has long been held by the Library of Congress. As the film was published in 1929, it will enter the public domain on January 1, 2025.

Home media

In December 2009, On with the Show! (in black and white) was made available on manufactured-on-demand DVD by the Warner Archive Collection.

See also

• List of early color feature films
• List of early sound feature films (1926–1929)
• List of incomplete or partially lost films

References

External links

• On with the Show! at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• On with the Show! at IMDb
• On with the Show! at AllMovie
• On with the Show! at the TCM Movie Database
• Early Technicolor discoveries from the BFI National Archive on YouTube (On with the Show! clip starts at 3:45)