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The latest VITAPHONE NEWS is now available on line at http://www.vitaphoneproject.com/" target="_blank

Go To Volume 12 #2 and click on it. Thanks to Pat Picking for posting.

Thanks, I always look forward to your newsletters. Any update info on new Vitaphone DVD releases?

Nothing I can report on right now, but things continue to be in the works.

A few weeks back I reported some records to you that were found in Amsterdam (private collector), but I did not get any reply. Now they were probably all already known, but still, if you could take a look?

Yes, all were already known, but thanks.

Nothing is mentioned here, but I suppose you've long ago discovered that the person identified as Ned Price on the last page is actually Richard Dayton.

Yes Dick, long ago.

This latest issue should be promoted as

In 100 percent Natural Color!

Very excited about what has been found "down under". Hoping that more early 2 color Technicolor turns up!

EARLY TECHNICOLOR SHORTS RESTORATIONS IN PROGRESS

The Vitaphone Project has put together funding for the restoration of several early Technicolor talkie shorts in addition to the work on
HELLO POP as discussed in this issue. Thanks to generous donations from Frank Buxton, Dudley Heer and Robert Marcus,
James Layton at George Eastman House now has three restorations in progress. They are:
THE SULTAN’S JESTER (Vitaphone, ’29) which is the only Vitaphone short from that first season to survive in Technicolor ;
MANHATTAN SERENADE (MGM, ’29) a musical with The Brox Sisters and Nina Mae McKinney; and
PIRATES (MGM, ’30) a musical two-reeler starring Benny Rubin.
The donations leverage a matching grant, and work will be completed before mid-2014.

Over a year ago I posted this image for identification purposes, and James Layton came up with an answer.
Thanks to your Vitaphone Newsletter (above), now I know how he knew....

Hi Patrick, great issue and chock full of discoveries. Pretty amazing finds.

Anyone have news of status of the "Showboat" box set -- believe I heard that there were plans to add the discovered prologue footage from '29 release but haven't seen any info in a while.

From time to time a lady writes to me looking for two musical shorts for the 1930s:

Sophomore Swing(1939) with Ted McMichael & other McMichaels

Freshie which I am having trouble finding a reference to this one.

About a decade ago I arrange a sale of a Laserdisc set of Vitaphone Swing Shorts to this lady which came from a friends collection. I kept mine and the other Vitaphone Laser sets. This lady is at a US university.

Any clues?

SOPHOMORE SWING (1938) survives although not issued on video. No such Vitaphone as FRESHIE.

Decotodd wrote:
Anyone have news of status of the "Showboat" box set -- believe I heard that there were plans to add the discovered prologue footage from '29 release but haven't seen any info in a while.

When you say the "prologue" do you mean to say they have finally found the musical sections that preceded the 1929 movie? Now that would be really something to see. I have only got the TCM version of "Show Boat" 1929, and it is missing several Vitaphone sound discs towards the end, so they have just inserted subtitles over a silent bit of film. No music whatsoever over the missing sections.

A scene from PIRATES (Production 461) Ann Dvorak is second from left in front row next to unidentified star in center.
Uploaded with ImageShack.com
Two sequences from MANHATTAN PARADE (Production 460) featuring Mitzi Mayfair. Ann Dvorak is to the left of Miss Mayfair. Mitiz's second 2 Strip Technicolor appearance is in the opening titles of PARAMOUNT ON PARADE. She appears later in the film in a sequence with Jack Haley and Zelma O'Neal but in black and white.
Uploaded with ImageShack.com
Uploaded with ImageShack.com

David of The Alps wrote:

Decotodd wrote:
Anyone have news of status of the "Showboat" box set -- believe I heard that there were plans to add the discovered prologue footage from '29 release but haven't seen any info in a while.

When you say the "prologue" do you mean to say they have finally found the musical sections that preceded the 1929 movie? Now that would be really something to see. I have only got the TCM version of "Show Boat" 1929, and it is missing several Vitaphone sound discs towards the end, so they have just inserted subtitles over a silent bit of film. No music whatsoever over the missing sections.

Others here can offer more information than I can, but the 1929 film offered a prologue with five numbers performed by the original Broadway cast, as well as some amount of additional material featuring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra as well as Otis Harlan (as Cap'n Andy) introducing the five stage performances.

Ziegfeld may or may not have appeared on camera.

How much of this "connecting" material (film or disc) survives, I have no idea.

As to the B'way performances: The five numbers were:

1) Tess Gardella - "Hey, Feller!"
2) Tess Gardella - Queenie's ballyhoo

these two numbers have been around, in full, for years and, IIRC were on the laser disc releases of the 1936 SHOW BOAT as extras.

3) Helen Morgan - "Bill".

some/most/all of this survives. Portions of this appear in the PBS "Broadway" documentary that came out a few years back. Footage was also included in A&E's Biography series, when discussing Ziegfeld's life and career.

4) Jules Bledsoe - "Ol' Man River"

some/most/all of this survives. It too was on the A&E Ziegfeld doc.

5) Helen Morgan - "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"

certainly the audio survives - it was included as an audio extra on the so-called "Complete SHOW BOAT" laser disc set. The story I was told that footage was found some years back and the first couple of feet were preserved ... showing Morgan walking on the set, sitting down on a table and singing "Fish ... " before the reel turned to jelly. This jives with the footage of the number shown on that A&E show.

And I understand that some/most/all of the missing dialogue discs for the feature have since been found.

Now where Warners is in the process of piecing all this material into a new video master, I have no idea.

FWIW, the last(?) time TCM ran the 1929 film, they ran what appeared to be the master of the feature used in "the Complete SHOW BOAT" set and filled out the two hour slot with *some* of the prologue (IIRC, audio of Whiteman playing "Why Do I Love You?")

IIRC, there were plans for an 80th anniversary DVD box set from Warners in 2008, but the recession put the kibosh on that. I can understand their reluctance to dump it out as part of their MOD program. Perhaps we'll get something in 2018 for the 90th.

Again, that's all I know at this point. Others here may have updated information.

agakhan44 wrote: Two sequences from MANHATTAN PARADE (Production 460) featuring Mitzi Mayfair.
Ann Dvorak is to the left of Miss Mayfair.

I'm sure it was just a typo, and you meant MANHATTAN SERENADE, not ...PARADE, but just to be accurate, the short is entitled MANHATTAN SERENADE.

SOPHOMORE SWING (1938) survives although not issued on video. No such Vitaphone as FRESHIE.

I too could find no reference to any film or short called Freshie.

SHOWBOAT(1929)

I had or have what I call a partial prologue in 16mm of Showboat(1929). I played around with it on a special projector I had to screen only on TV or Video equipment, not to the wall or screen. I was able to add some tints that the projector had. Ziegfeld, and(Ithink) Laemmle are seated in the middle of an otherwise empty auditorium watching the proceedings. The Laserdisc set I have only has the audio of the footage & there is more there than my footage. Yes more discs have been found but I have not heard if they now have all of them.

I have seen the name Emily Fitzroy in a list from a touring company that came to Australia way back when but I am not sure if this is the same lady as in Showboat.

moviepas wrote:From time to time a lady writes to me looking for two musical shorts for the 1930s:

Sophomore Swing(1939) with Ted McMichael & other McMichaels

Freshie which I am having trouble finding a reference to this one.

About a decade ago I arrange a sale of a Laserdisc set of Vitaphone Swing Shorts to this lady which came from a friends collection. I kept mine and the other Vitaphone Laser sets. This lady is at a US university.

Any clues?

vitaphone wrote:SOPHOMORE SWING (1938) survives although not issued on video. No such Vitaphone as FRESHIE.

Since there seems to be no Vitaphone short called Freshie, could she possibly be referring to the 1937 Educational short Freshies?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0326884/" target="_blank

moviepas wrote:From time to time a lady writes to me looking for two musical shorts for the 1930s:

Sophomore Swing(1939) with Ted McMichael & other McMichaels

Freshie which I am having trouble finding a reference to this one.

The NY state script collection has a Freshie from 1922 and Freshies from 1937 (no vitaphone sound, surely). They might have the script for her (and I'm told they send them as pdf as well but you have to ask for it).

moviepas wrote:a special projector I had to screen only on TV or Video equipment, not to the wall or screen.

Wouldn't that essentially be a projector to transfer to video?

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:

David of The Alps wrote:

Decotodd wrote:
Anyone have news of status of the "Showboat" box set -- believe I heard that there were plans to add the discovered prologue footage from '29 release but haven't seen any info in a while.

When you say the "prologue" do you mean to say they have finally found the musical sections that preceded the 1929 movie? Now that would be really something to see. I have only got the TCM version of "Show Boat" 1929, and it is missing several Vitaphone sound discs towards the end, so they have just inserted subtitles over a silent bit of film. No music whatsoever over the missing sections.

Others here can offer more information than I can, but the 1929 film offered a prologue with five numbers performed by the original Broadway cast, as well as some amount of additional material featuring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra as well as Otis Harlan (as Cap'n Andy) introducing the five stage performances.

Ziegfeld may or may not have appeared on camera.

How much of this "connecting" material (film or disc) survives, I have no idea.

As to the B'way performances: The five numbers were:

1) Tess Gardella - "Hey, Feller!"
2) Tess Gardella - Queenie's ballyhoo

these two numbers have been around, in full, for years and, IIRC were on the laser disc releases of the 1936 SHOW BOAT as extras.

3) Helen Morgan - "Bill".

some/most/all of this survives. Portions of this appear in the PBS "Broadway" documentary that came out a few years back. Footage was also included in A&E's Biography series, when discussing Ziegfeld's life and career.

4) Jules Bledsoe - "Ol' Man River"

some/most/all of this survives. It too was on the A&E Ziegfeld doc.

5) Helen Morgan - "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"

certainly the audio survives - it was included as an audio extra on the so-called "Complete SHOW BOAT" laser disc set. The story I was told that footage was found some years back and the first couple of feet were preserved ... showing Morgan walking on the set, sitting down on a table and singing "Fish ... " before the reel turned to jelly. This jives with the footage of the number shown on that A&E show.

And I understand that some/most/all of the missing dialogue discs for the feature have since been found.

Now where Warners is in the process of piecing all this material into a new video master, I have no idea.

FWIW, the last(?) time TCM ran the 1929 film, they ran what appeared to be the master of the feature used in "the Complete SHOW BOAT" set and filled out the two hour slot with *some* of the prologue (IIRC, audio of Whiteman playing "Why Do I Love You?")

IIRC, there were plans for an 80th anniversary DVD box set from Warners in 2008, but the recession put the kibosh on that. I can understand their reluctance to dump it out as part of their MOD program. Perhaps we'll get something in 2018 for the 90th.

Again, that's all I know at this point. Others here may have updated information.

Thanks for getting back to me Harlett. Now if I recall correctly, and without having to trawl through all of The Vitaphone Project newsletters going back a couple of years or three (?), I am fairly positive they have found all of the Vitaphone discs to the 1929 version of "SHOW BOAT"? Perhaps someone can step in here and remind me as I'm not sure which newsletter it was in now? But my muddled brain seems to think that a few years ago they stated (on The Vitaphone Project) that they had now found ALL of the missing sound Discs, and were going to attempt a restoration with the funding from Warner Home Video. This would tie in with your memory Harlett of them doing an 80th Anniversary edition in 2009. I too recall this "announcement" from way back when, but nothing became of it? I also recall them saying that the box-set would include all three of the "Show Boat" movies, (i.e. 1929, 1936 and 1951). I also distinctly remember them saying that there was a Hell of a lot of trouble with the 1951 Technicolor version. The Technicolor negatives had fallen into disrepair and were terribly foggy and troublesome, especially towards the end of the movie. They were saying that a major restoration project was required. I can't even recall if they said that the three YCM matrices still existed for the 1951 version? Or if they were going to have to work on a mint pressing of the film??

Going back to the 1929 version, I remember watching it on TCM about eight years ago, (someone copied it for me and sent it to me as I am in the UK) and I studied Laura La Plant's lips as she was singing at the end of the movie, inside the bar. I am not very good at lip reading, but I DID manage to figure out that she was singing "Can't Help Loving Dat Man Of Mine". This was obviously a scene where we had no sound whatsoever, only silence, and no subtitles either! But she was definitely singing that song because I could read her lips quite plainly, although I have no idea if it was her vocals or whether she was miming to someone else? Well they have obviously found this disc now, so why can they not restore it and put the vocals back to the picture? It is so annoying! Maybe it's because, as you say, they have lack of money? The recession has maybe hit Warners quite badly too? And maybe "The Jazz Singer" DVD box set didn't sell quite so well as they expected (?) hence their reluctance to release another 1920's musical? Who knows? All I know is is that I would LOVE to see this movie released with all of the surviving elements, be they picture, and/or sound?