King of Jazz - The Movie

The Movie

King of Jazz is a revue. There is no story, only a series of musical numbers alternating with "blackouts" (very brief comedy sketches with abrupt punch line endings) and other short introductory or linking segments.

The musical numbers are very diverse in character, taking a "something for everyone" approach to appeal to family audiences by catering to the young, the old and the middle-aged in turn, rather than attempting to suit everyone all the time. The slow Bridal Veil number, featuring (according to Universal) the largest veil ever made, drips with Victorian sentimentality that might best appeal to the elderly. The middle-aged might be more pleased by John Boles in a lush setting crooning It Happened in Monterey in waltz time, or in a barn with a chorus of red-shirted ranch hands belting out the Song of the Dawn. The "jazzy" Happy Feet number was apt to cause younger dance-crazy heels to rock and toes to tap, and even the youngest attendees could enjoy the cartoon, the sight gags, and the overall "eye candy" value of it all.

One segment early in the film serves to introduce several of the band's virtuoso musicians. Another provides the audience with a chance to see the Rhythm Boys, already famous by sound but not sight because of their recordings and radio broadcasts, performing in a home-like setting. There are novelty and comedy numbers ranging from the mildly risqué (Ragamuffin Romeo, which features contortionistic dancing that provides an excuse for intimate views of frilly underwear) to the humorously sadomasochistic (the second chorus of I Like to Do Things for You) to the simply silly (I'm a Fisherman). There is a line of chorus girls, practically mandatory in early musicals, but in their featured spot the novelty is that they are seated.

The grand finale is the Melting Pot number, in which various immigrant groups in national costume offer brief renditions of characteristic songs from their native lands, after which they are all consigned to the American Melting Pot. Performers from some of the earlier musical numbers briefly reprise their acts while reporting for duty as fuel under the pot. Whiteman stirs the steaming stew. When the cooking is complete, everyone emerges transformed into a jazz-happy American.

There are a couple of early examples of the overhead views later elaborated and made famous by Busby Berkeley, but this film bears little resemblance to his films and other musicals of the later 1930s. It is very much a stage presentation, albeit on a very large stage, and visual interest is maintained only by changes of viewpoint. The cameras do not move. This is not because the Technicolor cameras were heavy and bulky, as is sometimes stated. The cameras used for this early Technicolor process contained a single roll of film and were of nearly ordinary size and weight.

King of Jazz was the nineteenth all-talking motion picture filmed entirely in two-color Technicolor rather than simply including color sequences. At the time, Technicolor's two-color process employed red and green dyes, each with a dash of other colors mixed in, but no blue dye. King of Jazz was to showcase a spectacular presentation of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, so this presented a problem. Fortunately, the green dye Technicolor used can actually appear peacock blue (cyan) under some conditions, but acceptable results in this case would require very careful handling. Art director Herman Rosse and production director John Murray Anderson came up with ingenious solutions. Tests were made of various fabrics and pigments, and by using an all gray-and-silver background the bluish aspect of the dye was set off to best advantage. Filters were also used to inject pale blues into the scene being filmed. The goal was to produce a finished film with pastel shades rather than bright colors. Nevertheless, as it appears in an original two-color Technicolor print, the sequence might best be described as a "Rhapsody in Turquoise". Later prints made from the original two-component negative, which had survived, make the blues look truer and more saturated than they appeared to audiences in 1930.

King of Jazz marked the first film appearance of the popular crooner Bing Crosby, who, at the time, was a member of The Rhythm Boys, the Whiteman Orchestra's vocal trio.

Composer Ferde Grofé, best known for his Grand Canyon Suite, was in his early years a well known arranger/songwriter for Whiteman. He is documented to have arranged some of the music, and may in fact have composed some of the incidental music.

The film preserves a vaudeville bit by Whiteman band trombonist Wilbur Hall, who does novelty playing on violin and bicycle pump, as well as the eccentric dancing of "Rubber Legs" Al Norman to the tune of Happy Feet.

There were at least nine different foreign language versions of the film. Reportedly, the Swedish version has at least some different music.