A couple of days ago I posted an interview with Rudy Vallee from 1984 on Skip E. Lowe’s local Los Angeles public access television show. It was the 83 year old Vallee’s last televised appearance–he died two years later after a long illness. Let’s do a little comparing and contrasting now and see Vallee at the beginning of his career. In 1929, Vallee became radio’s first star singer when they put a live microphone hook-up in his nightclub, The Villa Vallee, and broadcast him nationwide. To capitalize on his success, Paramount made a short film at their Long Island City based Astoria Studios called ‘Radio Rhythm’. While it’s nearly impossible to fathom from this distance the reasons for Vallee’s fame–his singing is nasal, his saxophone playing merely all right–it’s fascinating to see what passed for a heartthrob performer ninety-five years ago. Vallee became a comic actor later in his career–Preston Sturges cast him in ‘The Palm Beach Story’ in 1943 and ‘Unfaithfully Yours’ in 1948–and is a much more adept and still amusing presence in these films then he was as a singer. Nonetheless, his fame from his early crooner days was phenomenal at the time.

So, what’s ‘Radio Rhythm’ really about? Well, a flapper turns on her radio set to listen to a musical program. Sitting on top of the radio is the radio’s external speaker. In a clever closeup we see Rudy Vallee himself stepping out of the speaker singing a hit song of the day, “Honey”! He joins his band, the Connecticut Yankees, all seemingly assembled on top of the radio in miniature size, and plays “You’re Just Another Memory”. Vallee dons a crumpled top hat in an imitation of another famous bandleader of the 1920’s, Ted Lewis, during the last song “You’ll Do It Someday”. He plays an amusing Lewis style clarinet solo and even does a magic trick with the top hat before this short is over. And that, in a nutshell, is what entertainment was about in 1929!