Jesus, I have seen some weird shorts (I even wrote an article about the Dogvilles), but Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner not only took the cake, it threw it in Loretta Young’s face. It was a celebration of Warner Bros.’ “Silver Jubilee,” despite the fact that the company was only seven years old in 1930. It was hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Warner Bros. Pictures, portrayed by Otis Skinner and Beryl Mercer, both of them well into late middle age, and their grisly daughter, Little Miss Vitaphone, played by the kind of Baby Jane Hudson/Jon-Benet Ramsey child actress who makes you want to rush out and donate money to the closet abortion clinic.
Little Miss V. introduces, in fingernails-on-blackboard tones, all the unfortunate WB stock players, who were no doubt ordered to show up for an all-night “banquet” shoot after working hours (most of them visibly thinking, “Beryl must have been 60 already when she birthed that brat–is Otis still putting it to her?”).
It was kind of cool seeing Loretta, Walter Huston, Joan Blondell, David (yum!) Manners, Winnie Lightner, Joe E. Brown, Marilyn Miller, and a starlet I swear Little Miss V. intorduced as “Lumpy Logan” (turned out she was actually Lotti Loder, but her career might have gone better had she named herself Lumpy Logan). Oh, and L.M.V. read some “telegrams” from bigger stars who wouldn’t be coerced into appearing in person, including John Barrymore (I’d kill to read what he’d really have written!).
Anyone else see this last night, or have any other favorite bizarre short subjects?
How exactly does one get crowned “Little Miss Vitaphone?” Do they have to be unable to speak unless an accompianing record in playing in time with their lip movements?
Not only that, but Little Miss Vitaphone is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Warner Bros. Pictures. Adopted? And what was Mrs. Bros. Pictures’ maiden name, before she married Warner?
Well, there was And She Learned About Dames, a straight promotional piece for the film Dames that tried to pretend otherwise. Supposedly a schoolgirl (who was clearly in her 20s, at least) won a contest to see them rehearse. The “rehearsal” consisted of clips from the movie, with a couple of scenes showing her meeting the stars. It was pure promotion, and probably a test for its star, Martha Merrill, whose career was brief and unmemorable (her IMDB entry lists her as appearing in ten films, but nearly all of them were uncredited).
We recently rented That’s Entertainment from NetFlix, and there’s a segment that seems to obviously be from a similar MGM short from 1949, a silver jubilee banquet with all of the studio’s stars eating at looooooong tables, some chatting, some laughing, some obviously only there for contractual reasons (they’re not smiling).
Little Miss Vitaphone is obviously an honorary title like Miss America or a term of endearment… Her real name is probably Vitaphone Bros. Pictures or something like that. Then again, Mr. Warner Bros. Pictures is probably a nickname used by Harry, Albert, Jack, and/or Sam (and potentially Yakko and Wakko), whereas Mrs. Warner Bros. Pictures is used by their wives (and potentially Dot).
We watched this short last night and it was as weird as you said it was, Eve. But not as weird as the two Dogville shorts we saw, which I had never heard of before last night. “Trader Hound” was especially f’ed up and offensive. You haven’t seen true horror until you’ve seen a bunch of dogs in afro wigs “speak” in dubbed-over racist stereotype voices.
Oh, definitely. That lion costume was especially convincing, mostly because it was made from the pelt of an actual lion! I don’t even know what was up with the giraffe. I started to think I’d accidentally mixed medications or something.
“So Quiet on the Canine Front.” Not one of their best, but I do love when they try to attract the German dogs with barbed-wire hot dogs: “They won’t be able to resist our weiners!”
Circa 1905, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company to distribute films. They always considered that the origin of Warner Bros. Pictures.