All Americans
About All Americans
Arthur Van Slyke, dressed as Uncle Sam, introduces a stage full of singers and dancers in national costumes. Each group performs a tune tied to the country it represents. They leave and come back in spangled outfits that mark them as Americans. The last number, "Into the Melting Pot," uses optical printing to drop the performers into the pot.
Cast & crew
More about All Americans
Joseph Santley directed the short for Paramount. Paramount Famous Lasky registered the copyright in July 1929. The surviving copy runs 19 minutes and 3 seconds.
Themes
Background
The number acts out the melting-pot slogan that immigration debates of the 1920s kept in circulation: national dress first, then one American costume.
Making
Santley stages it as a revue with a single master of ceremonies, then breaks the stage picture only for the trick finale.
Look
Most of the short is a frontal record of the stage. The last chorus is built with optical printing.
Technique
The melting-pot shot is an optical effect, not a stage trick photographed straight on.
Music
Each group sings a recognizable national tune before the company switches to the American finale. The film is a full talkie.
Preservation
A 19-minute print survives. The copyright was renewed in 1956 by U.M. & M. TV Corporation.
Notes
- U.M. & M. TV Corporation renewed the copyright on October 1, 1956.
- The short is an extra on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of King of Jazz (1930).
- The billed performers include Mimi Lehmann, John Herman, Max Seidl, Kathryn Reece, and Ottabio Valentini, with Arthur Van Slyke.
- The camera stays on a proscenium view until the melting-pot finale, which is an optical composite.
- Internet Archive holds a copy under the identifier all-americans-1929.
Scenes
- Van Slyke, as Uncle Sam, brings on each national group.
- The same performers return in matching American costumes.
- Figures are printed into a melting pot for the last chorus.
Also available
- Internet Archive (all-americans-1929)
- Criterion Collection Blu-ray of King of Jazz (1930), as an extra
