The Big Revue

Music 18 minutes

Open in new tab

About The Big Revue

Children take the stage in a variety layout. A chorus of girls dances with tambourines, then a boy and a girl do a gymnastic turn. The chorus returns for a tap routine. A girl conducting the orchestra introduces the Gumm Sisters, three children who sing and dance alone. Frances, the youngest, punches the replies in "That's the Good Old Sunny South." The finish is an Arabian number by another line of dancers.

Cast & crew

More about The Big Revue

Murray Roth directed this Vitaphone Varieties short. Milton Ager wrote the music. The Gumm Sisters are Mary Jane, Virginia, and seven-year-old Frances, later Judy Garland, appearing with the Meglin Kiddies. Warner Bros. distributed it. John Fricke dates an 18-minute two-reeler at the Fox Belmont Theatre in Hollywood on August 14, 1929. Wikipedia dates the Fox Belmont showing to September 14, 1929.

Themes

  • A children's vaudeville bill
  • Three sisters in one specialty
  • A comic Southern number
  • Gumm Sisters
  • Frances Gumm
  • Meglin Kiddies
  • Vitaphone
  • tap dance
  • tambourines
  • That's the Good Old Sunny South

Background

Warner Bros. was filling programs with Vitaphone shorts in the years after The Jazz Singer. This one is a children's revue, not a backstage story.

In film history

Frances Gumm's screen career starts here, six years before MGM featured her as Judy Garland.

Making

The Meglin Kiddies were a Los Angeles children's troupe. The Gumms were already a vaudeville act when they were put into this revue.

Music

Milton Ager supplied the songs, including "That's the Good Old Sunny South," lyric by Jack Yellen, sung by the Gumm Sisters. The track is Vitaphone sound-on-disc.

Preservation

Prints in circulation are dupes with the wear of several generations. The short survives.

Notes

  • It is Frances Gumm's first film. She was billed with her sisters, not as Judy Garland.
  • The conductor's introduction calls them the Gumm Sisters, "not the Wrigley Sisters.
  • That's the Good Old Sunny South" is by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen.
  • The short is also called The Starlet Revue.
  • Vitaphone played the sound from discs locked to the picture.
  • Two more Gumm shorts followed in 1930: A Holiday in Storyland and The Wedding of Jack and Jill.

Scenes

  • The girl conductor brings on the Gumm Sisters.
  • Frances shouts the "Yes, sir!" answers in "That's the Good Old Sunny South.
  • The closing chorus dances an Arabian number.