If you'd like to get a taste of what old-time Vaudeville was like, take a look at this fascinating and amusing talkie short. Headliner Eddie Cantor delivers a six-minute routine consisting of several jokes, two songs, and one comic poem, performed before a black backdrop in an empty studio. It's too bad the filmmakers couldn't have captured him in front of a live audience-- as it is, Eddie's jokes are met with eerie silence --but at least George Olsen's terrific dance band was present (off-camera) to provide jaunty jazz accompaniment. This short captures Cantor's act at the point when his career was really taking off, when he was starring in the Broadway musical comedy "Kid Boots," produced by legendary showman Flo Ziegfeld. The film was made at the midtown Manhattan studio of Lee De Forest, pioneer of the sound-on-film process known as 'Phonofilm.' Between 1922 and 1928 De Forest made dozens of talkie shorts featuring prominent performers such as Cantor, DeWolf Hopper, Weber & Fields, Eubie Blake, etc., films that are invaluable records of the great stage stars of the day.
Mr. Cantor sings two funny songs, "O Gee Georgie," and one he co-authored with a punchline for a title: "The Dumber They Come, the Better I Like 'Em ('Cause the Dumb Ones Know How to Make Love)." If he was uncomfortable performing his act without an audience you'd never guess it from his exuberant delivery. Eddie skips, dances, scatters imaginary rose petals from his derby hat, etc., looking very much like the caricatured version of himself that would pop up in so many Warner Bros cartoons in later years. Most of his jokes are "groaners," but Cantor (like Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, etc.) was a comic who got more mileage out of the jokes that bomb than the ones that score. That's why I regret there wasn't a live audience in the studio when this film was made: if they'd groaned at his punchlines, Eddie would've tossed out comeback lines funnier than the original jokes.
I wish Lee De Forest had been able to capture footage of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and W.C. Fields performing his juggling act when he was still young and nimble, but as it stands I'm grateful for the survival of the films that were made. This one is a treat, and it's available on DVD from a couple of different sources. Someday, however, it would be terrific news for Vaudeville buffs to hear that all the surviving De Forest Phonofilms have been restored and released in a single collection. If that happens, someone please let me know!
Mr. Cantor sings two funny songs, "O Gee Georgie," and one he co-authored with a punchline for a title: "The Dumber They Come, the Better I Like 'Em ('Cause the Dumb Ones Know How to Make Love)." If he was uncomfortable performing his act without an audience you'd never guess it from his exuberant delivery. Eddie skips, dances, scatters imaginary rose petals from his derby hat, etc., looking very much like the caricatured version of himself that would pop up in so many Warner Bros cartoons in later years. Most of his jokes are "groaners," but Cantor (like Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, etc.) was a comic who got more mileage out of the jokes that bomb than the ones that score. That's why I regret there wasn't a live audience in the studio when this film was made: if they'd groaned at his punchlines, Eddie would've tossed out comeback lines funnier than the original jokes.
I wish Lee De Forest had been able to capture footage of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and W.C. Fields performing his juggling act when he was still young and nimble, but as it stands I'm grateful for the survival of the films that were made. This one is a treat, and it's available on DVD from a couple of different sources. Someday, however, it would be terrific news for Vaudeville buffs to hear that all the surviving De Forest Phonofilms have been restored and released in a single collection. If that happens, someone please let me know!
