The Beau Brummels
About The Beau Brummels
The curtains open on Al Shaw and Sam Lee in matching suits, bow ties, and hats. They sing, then trade deadpan jokes, including one about twenty people under an umbrella, none of them wet, because it was not raining. There is no story and no one else in the shot. The act is one continuous medium shot, with a long shot only at the start and at the end.
Cast & crew
More about The Beau Brummels
Vitaphone production 2686, released by Warner Bros. on 22 September 1928. It runs 9 minutes. Sound is a Western Electric Vitaphone disc. It was the first film Shaw and Lee made together. The songs are "The Fountain in the Park," with new lyrics by Shaw and Lee, "Don't Forget to Breathe or Else You'll Die," and "The Guy Who Wrote This Song Was Deaf."
Themes
Background
Vitaphone released it on 22 September 1928, number 2686, while the studio was still issuing short sound acts on disc.
Making
Warner Bros. pointed a camera at the finished vaudeville act and let it run. The pair had the timing set; the performance is a single take in the middle of the reel.
Look
The camera holds Shaw and Lee in one medium shot for about eight minutes. A long shot opens the curtains and closes them.
Music
They sing "The Fountain in the Park (While Strolling Through the Park One Day)," with lyrics revised by Shaw and Lee, plus "Don't Forget to Breathe or Else You'll Die" and "The Guy Who Wrote This Song Was Deaf," both by Shaw and Lee. The sound is a Vitaphone disc.
Preservation
UCLA Film and Television Archive holds a 35mm preservation positive.
Notes
- Al Shaw was Albert Schutzman, 1891–1957. Sam Lee was Samuel Levy, 1891–1980.
- They speak English with Yiddish phrases.
- A 35mm preservation positive is at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
- The umbrella joke and a joke about 30,000 geese on a porch are in the routine.
Scenes
- The curtains open on Shaw and Lee standing side by side in matching hats.
- Lee tells the umbrella joke without changing his face.
Also available
- UCLA Film and Television Archive
- Wikimedia Commons (The Beau Brummels (1928).webm)
Quotes
Twenty people under one umbrella. Not one got wet.
How's that?
It wasn't raining.