
6.4Two vaudeville performers fall in love, but find their relationship tested by the arrival of WWI.
5.5Foreign investors converge on a luxury hotel in China to bid on a new kind of radioscope. But, this is a hotel where Burns and Allen are the in-house medical staff, a measles risk sends the whole building into quarantine, and a madcap millionaire crashes dinner in his autogyro. Hotel and radioscope become a stage for an all-star cast of comedians and musicians, from vaudeville to the new generation.
6.5Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.
Camera iris opens to six ponies with decorated harnesses and plumed halters, standing in the center of a stage with a painted backdrop of mountains. Cuts to two ponies on a seesaw, with a moustached man in a white uniform with dark piping and a white cap holding their leads. A second trainer in a dark suit can also be seen occasionally with the ponies. Individual ponies perform a variety of tricks, including rolling a slatted barrel across the stage with front legs and then with a nose, knocking over the barrel, "limping" across the stage with one front leg held off the ground, and pushing the trainer over with a nose-butt.
5.6Old Nat Moyer is a talker, a philosopher, and a troublemaker with a fanciful imagination. His companion is Midge Carter, who is half-blind, but still the super of an apartment house. When he is threatened with retirement, Nat battles on his behalf. Nat also takes on his daughter, a drug dealer, and a mugger in this appealing version of a really 'odd couple'.
6.4Construction worker Buzz Blackwell becomes the guardian of 12-year-old Pat Johnson after one of his buddies, her father, is killed. Buzz and Pat, along with their chum Axel Swensen, head to New York to look for the girl's uncle. The trio soon unexpectedly become owners of a tired restaurant.
Opens on a closeup of a baboon "playing" a violin, then cuts to a medium shot of the same. The baboon wears a white short-sleeved shirt with a loose bow tie and tweed pants. Cuts to a closeup of the baboon in a circular mask or iris effect, without the violin but with a collar around his neck and a striped kitten that he places on his shoulder. Another iris effect opens to a long shot of a stage with a painted backdrop of a river. Standing at stage left is a woman in a spangled, sleeveless dress to the knee and high laced boots, holding the leash of a dark donkey. (Library of Congress)
5.2A woman shows off her trained dogs.
6.0A married couple who have a song-and-dance act in vaudeville are in trouble. Their struggling act is going nowhere, they're almost broke and they have to do something to get them back on top or they'll really be in trouble. They decide to put their young son in the act in hopes of attracting some new attention. The boy turns out to be a major talent, audiences love him and the act is on its way to the top. That's when an organization whose purpose is to stop children from performing on stage shows up, and they're dead set on breaking up the act.
The scene is a parlor out West, with Ray Mayer sitting at the piano in is cowboy duds - hat, scarf, and chaps. He plays a little barrel-house music and then introduces Edith Evans, who enters wearing fur. She sings - her voice a light-opera soprano - while Mayer plays.
3.0The comedy team of Jack Born and Elmer Lawrence perform their vaudeville act.
5.5Comedian Chaz Chase performs his vaudeville act.
1.0A comedic team. The Ann seems to try and come across as a Mae West type. Jay plays the role of the straight partner.
1.0Harry Fox performs his vaudeville act.
Vaudeville comedians Foottit and Chocolat hop and dance around and occasionally fight.
5.0The film concerns a family vaudeville troupe headed by patriarch Pete Monahan. Because of his love affair with the bottle, Pete manages to get himself and his family blacklisted from every major vaude house in the country. Though Pete's kids Jimmy and Patsy love their dad, they're forced to break away from the act and go off on their own to survive. Eventually, the whole gang is reunited in a shamelessly lachrymose musical finale.
A vaudeville routine: two denizens of the Bowery dance while under the influence. She's wearing a light dress with a full skirt. He wears a white sport coat and tie. Both have hats. On a small stage, she approaches him gingerly, leaning forward. He grabs her close, she leans into him, and he waltzes her around.
8.0Vaudeville act performed by husband and wife team Russ Brown and Jean Whitaker.
5.7Vaudeville team Shaw & Lee sing songs and tell jokes in hilarious deadpan.