Witt & Berg (1926) User Reviews

Very early Vitaphone short spotlighting a musical act

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 12 November 2022]

Bob WItt and Cy Berg are a couple of Vaudeville musicians who sing a couple of songs on an early Vitaphone short. The two songs are Honolulu Hula Girl and Hello, Aloha, How Are You? The musicians do not move about at all - Vitaphone did not allow movement. The main thing that recommended Vitaphone was that it was a sound system that allowed sufficient amplification for an entire movie theater.

These two perhaps starred in the first ever "Making Of" documentary when the filming of this short is featured in a Vitaphone short ABOUT making a Vitaphone short - "The Voice From the Screen". If they seem a bit stiff here, watching that short will maybe show you why, since they are being directed by technicians who mainly want to get a good recording and are not interested in a natural performance.

The "Witt & Berg" short was one of several Vitaphone shorts that played during the premiere of Don Juan in 1926, which was the first feature film to ever use Vitaphone, although at this point it was only used for the score and sound effects.

This short is available on The Jazz Singer three disc set, along with many other Vitaphone shorts that have been restored.

Pretty dull...even for an early sound film.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 2 July 2019]

In the 1920s, before Warner Brothers released the groundbreaking film "The Jazz Singer", they produced a variety of experimental short sound films through their Vitaphone division. Most of them consisted of people singing numbers in front of a nice set....though the action and acting in many of the early ones were very stilted with the folks staying mostly in place. Here, Witt & Berg perform several Hawaiian-style songs (very popular at the time)...and accompanying themselves with a guitar and ukelele. The pair mostly stay in place...swaying slightly and lightly bow between songs. As for the music quality, it's fair to good....but not especially enjoyable to me.

I have really enjoyed many of the early Vitaphone films, but found this one harder to love mostly because Witt & Berg were pretty dull and their music seemed a bit stale.

Test Reel

[boblipton · 6/10 · 25 February 2019]

Witt & Berg perform, one on the ukulele, the other on the guitar. They play and sing "Honolulu Baby", "Hello Aloha", "Saint Louis Blues" and "All Alone With You." For some reason, the guitar player (I don't know whether he is Witt or Berg) plays exactly the same chord progression on the guitar for the first three numbers.

It's not a particularly interesting short in itself. The two men wear evening clothes, bow slightly after each number and start another. Yet this is interesting because it was produced before Vitaphone readied their program for the big show surrounding DON JUAN. It was intended to demonstrate to Warner's brass and possibly to their theater managers that the system would work.