Yesterday I posted a 1972 interview with songwriting great Harry Warren. Today let’s look backwards forty years from that time to 1933 and watch a Vitaphone “Pepper Pot” short called “Harry Warren; America’s Foremost Composer’. In it, Warren appears at a piano in a beautiful art deco setting, surrounded by stylish and racy men and women, all there to celebrate his achievements by singing and dancing up a storm. Harry does a little singing which is out-of-sync, leaving me to wonder if it’s really his voice. It’s rather high though, and so was his singing voice in the 1972 interview so we’ll take it for being the real thing. What I’m damn sure of is that’s not him really playing piano. The exuberant style of the playing–assured and very jazz-age–was simply beyond his own slightly creaky note-picking. No matter. It’s lovely to see him at age 39-ish being hailed for his genius–he suffered neglect amongst the public who admired more famous songwriters and his relative lack of fame always burned him. The film is exceptionally well staged, lit and directed by Ray McCarey, brother of Leo McCarey. Enjoy this eight minute journey into another world. It even finishes with a clip from ’42nd Street’, just to send you out of the theater dancing. All in all a great time to be had for all…unless I bring up the fact that Ray McCarey committed suicide fifteen years later, in 1948. There. I did it. I ruined everything.