In December, 1929 the above remarkable footage was shot in the Times Square Theater during rehearsals of the Gershwin show ‘Strike Up The Band’. I’ve posted this before but every so often I rewatch it and am freshly amazed at what a rare and peculiar document it is. In it, we see what’s clearly a staged-for-the-cameras rehearsal, a faux documentary of a day in the theater. The featured comedy team of the show, Bobby Clark and Paul McCullogh, interact with Gershwin in some obviously scripted banter. The fat chorus girls look hopelessly out of their depth, but I guess this is what dancing on Broadway looked like at the time. (See ‘The Cocoanuts’ for a clearer view of what seemed to be an acceptable job from a presumably well-rehearsed chorus line. Oye.). The camera placement is awfully strange–one shot is from the second floor of the wings sideways, the other from the same angle only on the backstage floor. (There’s also a rather lovely impressionistic opening angle featuring a dancer stretching her legs out on a ladder). Dramatic as the side angles are–especially the upper one–the result is no facial view of any of the participants. After this section we’re treated to a take of Gershwin playing ‘Strike Up The Band’ on the piano. And that’s that.

What was this film shot for? Was it intended as part of a larger backstage doc of some sort that didn’t materialize? On IMDB, under ‘self’, Gershwin appears in only one movie shown in his lifetime, the CBS Inaugural Television Broadcast of 1931. So this wasn’t filmed for that purpose–it’s two years earlier. (Yes, I checked YouTube for that very tantalizing sounding broadcast but no dice–the chances of it having been captured are less than nil). In any event, we have the precious raw footage and have Gershwin scholar Edward Jablonski and pianist and Gershwin specialist Jack Gibbon to thank for unearthing and providing it.