clintonguyon

The snippets available "out there" make it seem like the most thorough and accomplished paen (ahem) to the 3 Berkeley musicals of 1933. The major studios seemed to make half-hearted and late-to-the-party stabs at Buzz's 1933 excesses but this film grabs his' innovations with both hands and goes to town with them rather shamelessly. And there are a few not bad songs: Are you Making Any Money (performed in one at the footlights like "Getting To Be Habit") and Dusty Shoes (a complete "Forgotten Man" and Brother Can You Spare a Dime" mashup replete with time lapse calendar dissolves and and the incredible lyric "This country is ROTTEN!) Who owns the rights? Did TCM ever show it?

Time Warner New York in Queens also experienced this at the 55 minute mark (I have only just checked my own DVR of the print-- sorry for the tardy reply to this). What was experienced was a frozen blocky frame for about five minutes followed by about 4 minutes of NO AUDIO! Very frustrating! Was this a satellite glitch affecting a wide swath of customers?

Film is offered on demand in Time Warner NYC area and I compared it last night to the DVD. Several odd things: the aspect ratio is more like CinemaScope than VistaVision, and the picture actually looks squished to fit the deeper letterboxing. Also the framing is off: the tops of the sets, the back wall of the sound stage, and lightning equipment is visible in various wide shots during the Dogpatch ensemble scenes, and boom mikes are visible during the scenes in the senator's office. I don't recall the film looking like this when it was broadcast by TCM several months ago.