A Look at When Movies Learned to Sing, Dance

Movies learned to sing just about the minute they learned to talk. And the next minute they learned to dance. Or, at least, tried to.

MGM/UA, which has been filling the laser shelf with seemingly everything in its vast library, this week issues a four-disc set as part of “The Dawn of Sound” series that helps you understand why your grandparents left their radio for Saturday nights at the Bijou.

“Hollywood Revue of 1929,” “The Broadway Melody” and “Show of Shows” (digital sound, $80) provide a rough idea of how the movie musical started, and why producers finally realized that simply planting a revue on stage and cranking up the cameras wasn’t enough to enthrall audiences.

For movie buffs, this set, produced by George Feltenstein and Peter Fitzgerald, brings together some charming moments--and some real dogs--including several bits and short subjects long unavailable.

“Hollywood Revue of 1929,” trying to do “The Jazz Singer” one better, gathers up just about every star on the early MGM lot to sing and dance, including a painfully flat Joan Crawford. Even radio comedian Jack Benny looks embarrassed providing the narrative for Marion Davies, Norma Shearer, Buster Keaton, Ukelele Ike and a host of others. One thing is clear: Silent star John Gilbert suffered a bad rap for decades. In a rather humorous “Romeo and Juliet” sequence with Shearer and Lionel Barrymore, Gilbert’s pinched voice and persona carry over just fine to talking pictures.

The black-and-white film transfer also includes some sequences in early two-color Technicolor, processed via new interpositives from the original 35mm nitrate two-color negative.

Wonder where inspiration for the classic silents-to-talkies-era “Singin’ in the Rain” might have come from? Look no further than this three-film set. Two versions of the song crop up in “Hollywood Revue” and a real oddity bows in with some of the supplementary material, in particular a 1930 MGM short called “The Dogway Melody.” A cavalcade of breeds, dressed up in appropriate costumes, hoof it up on two legs, spoofing the silly Broadway story in “Melody” and “singing” the tunes that were the films’ signature songs: “Singin’ in the Rain” and “You Were Meant for Me.”

A highlight of “Broadway Melody” is Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed’s catchy “The Wedding of the Painted Doll.” They also make an appearance, along with a gaggle of other songwriters, in a 1929 MGM short called “The Songwriter’s Revue,” again narrated, still woodenly, by Jack Benny. Where else would you see Gus Edwards singing his “School Days” or Ed Dryer singing his “Me and My Shadow”? Stilted or not, it’s a fascinating look, in a surprisingly well-preserved bit of footage, at the men who helped make the movies sing.

“Show of Shows” was Warner Bros.-Vitaphone’s answer to “Hollywood Revue of 1929” and includes just about every star on their rosters, among them Beatrice Lillie, Ben Turpin, Monte Blue and Rin Tin Tin. John Barrymore declaims extravagantly as “Richard III” and a very young Myrna Loy looks lovely, and awkwardly cast, in the dated, if not racist, “Chinese Fantasy.”

By the time you make your way to the MGM/UA double feature “Broadway Melody of 1936” and “Broadway Melody of 1938” ($45) the more sophisticated story lines and musical numbers are welcome, especially stars Eleanor Powell and Robert Taylor. “You Are My Lucky Star” and “Broadway Rhythm” are the most memorable of Brown-Freed’s numbers in “1936,” but the lumpier “1938” offers hoofing by George Murphy and Buddy Ebsen as well as a true bit of motion picture magic, Judy Garland singing “Dear Mr. Gable.” Well-defined chapter searches (26 in “ ‘36” and 34 in “ ‘38”) make it easy to zip past the more cumbersome plot points.

The original theatrical trailers for both films are also included.