Monday, 22 April 2013

Song of the Flame 1930 Soundtrack

Song of the Flame 1930 Soundtrack

Reels 1,4,5,7 and 9

Download at:

https://archive.org/details/VitaphoneSoundtrackCollection

 

Song of the Flame (1930) is an all-talking pre-code musical operetta film photographed entirely in Technicolor. It was produced and distributed by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. It was the first color film to feature a widescreen sequence, using a process called Vitascope, the trademark name for Warner Bros.' widescreen process. The Spanish Herald pictured below shows one of the widescreen scenes which was presented in the film in color.



The film, based on the 1925 Broadway musical of the same name, was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Recording (George Groves).[1]


Film Plot

Bernice Claire, known in the film as The Flame, is a young peasant girl who incites the people against the Czarist regime and the aristocracy through singing.



Alexander Gray, who plays as a prince who is the leader of a group of Cossack troops, falls in love with Claire, even though she is part of a revolution that is dead set against his social class.



Noah Beery is also part of the revolutionaries who are attempting to overthrow the Czarist regime.



After meeting Claire, he also falls in love with her, much to the anger of his lover, who is played by Alice Gentle.





The revolutionaries success in overthrowing the czarist regime leaving Gray and his aristocratic class in peril for their lives and fortunes. Beery becomes the new leader and his brutal treatment of the people make many regret having supported the revolution in the first place.



After Beery attempts to seduce her, Claire flees to a village in her native Poland. Gray, fleeing from the new regime, happens to arrive at the village. When he meets Claire again he decides to stay. They put their political differences aside and become romantically involved.



Hearing from his spies that the Prince is at a Polish village, Beery quickly goes there and arrests Gray and announces that he attends to execute him. Claire desperately attempts to free Gray by agreeing to have sex with Beery. Gray is released from prison through this ruse and when is it discovered that she had no intention of keeping her side of the bargain she is thrown into jail. Gray disguises himself and attempts to free Claire but he is discovered and Beery orders for both of them to be imprisoned again.



Before they can be executed, Alice Gentle, revealing the real reason behind Beery's execution order, tells the troops to release both Gray and Claire. Beery is arrested soon after as a traitor to the revolution by the troops and executed. Claire and Gray are left free to pursue their romance.

Cast

Music

Noah Beery was widely praised for his deep bass voice, which he first exhibited in this film in the song "One Little Drink."





This song was satirized in the Bosko cartoon entitled: The Booze Hangs High (1930). Based on the success of this song, Warner Bros. subsequently cast Beery in a number of musical films, most notably in Golden Dawn (1930). The public was so enthralled by his singing abilities that Brunswick Records hired Beery to record songs from both of these films which were issued in their popular series.


Preservation

The film is believed to be lost. Only the soundtrack, which was recorded separately on Vitaphone disks, survives. The extant sound discs from this film reveal a very high quality Vitaphone sound - round, warm, and clear with good sound effects and a quality reproduction of speaking and singing voices as well as orchestrations. It would seem it fully deserved its Academy Award nomination for Best Sound. The score is a marvelously operatic one. All nine songs are preserved in the sound disc performances. There were four choruses as well, three of traditional Russian folk tunes and one drawn from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.

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Hold Everything 1930 Complete Soundtrack

 Hold Everything 1930

Complete Soundtrack

Download at:

https://archive.org/details/VitaphoneSoundtrackCollection



Hold Everything is a 1930 early all-talking film. It was the first musical comedy film to be released that was photographed entirely in early two-color Technicolor. It was adapted from the DeSylva-Brown-Henderson Broadway musical of the same name that had served as a vehicle for Bert Lahr and starred Winnie Lightner and Joe E. Brown as the comedy duo. The romantic subplot was played by Georges Carpentier and Sally O'Neil. Only one song from the stage show remained: "You're the Cream in My Coffee". New songs were written for the film by Al Dubin and Joe Burke, including one that became a hit in 1930: "When The Little Red Roses Get The Blues For You". The songs in the film were played by Abe Lyman and his orchestra.

Cast:




Synopsis

Brown plays Gink Schiner, a third-rate fighter who is at the same training camp as Georges LaVerne (played by Georges Carpentier), a contender for the heavyweight championship. Although he needs to be concentrating all of his energies on the upcoming bout, Georges keeps getting distracted: Norine Lloyd, a society dame, has a distinct interest in him, but the interest is strictly one-sided.



Georges prefers Sue, an old buddy and confidante. Gink has woman trouble of his own, as his flirtations do not sit at all well with Toots (played by Winnie Lightner), his erstwhile girlfriend.





More trouble arrives when Larkin, manager of current heavyweight champ Bob Morgan, appears at the camp with the goal of fixing the fight. He is sent packing, after which he attempts to slip a Mickey Finn to the challenger -- a plan which goes awry when Gink switches the drinks. Meanwhile, Gink, who is fighting in a preliminary in advance of the big fight, actually wins.



Things don't look so bright for Georges, who initially gets the worst of it in his encounter with Morgan, but who eventually comes out on top.





Songs:

  • "To Know You Is To Love You"
  • "Sing A Little Theme Song"
  • "When The Little Red Roses Get the Blues For You"
  • "Isn't This A Cock-Eyed World?"






Preservation status

While the soundtrack to the film, recorded on Vitaphone disks, still survives, all film elements have been lost.


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Bride Of The Regiment 1930 Complete Soundtrack

Bride Of The Regiment 1930 

Complete Soundtrack 

Download at:

https://archive.org/details/VitaphoneSoundtrackCollection

 

Bride of the Regiment (1930) is an American musical film directed by John Francis Dillon filmed entirely in Technicolor. The screenplay by Ray Harris and Humphrey Pearson is based on the book of the 1922 stage musical The Lady in Ermine by Frederick Lonsdale and Cyrus Wood, which had been adapted from the operetta Die Frau im Hermelin by Rudolph Schanzer and Ernst Welisch. The story is a remake of a 1927 First National silent film, The Lady in Ermine, that starred Corinne Griffith.[1]


Plot

The film takes place during a period in which Austria controlled Italy during the Austro-Italian War of 1830. Colonel Vultow, played by Walter Pidgeon, leader of Austrian cavalry regiment, is sent to Italy to put down a revolt led by the Lombardian aristocracy. Vultow decides to go to the castle of Count Adrian Beltrami, played by Allan Prior, one of the leaders of the revolution. This happens to be Beltrami's wedding day.



As he returns from the church to his castle following his wedding to Countess Anna-Marie (Vivienne Segal), Beltrami learns that Colonel Vultow is quickly approaching the town in search of him.



At the behest of his bride, Beltrami flees the castle, but he asks Tangy, a silhouette cutter, to impersonate him and protect Anna-Marie. Colonel Vultow arrives at the castle with his troops.









Colonel Vultow meets Sophie, a dancer who is stopping at the castle.



Vultow immediately takes an interest in Sophie. Even though she is engaged to another man, Sophie openly flirts with Vultow.



Soon after however, Vultow meets Anna-Marie and becomes even more interested in her, much to the chagrin of Sophie. When Adrian returns in disguise, he is introduced to Vultow as a singer and silhouette cutter, and when the count demands he create a silhouette, he enlists Tangy's aid. The deception is discovered, and Vultow sentences Adrian to death by a firing squad unless Anna-Marie submits to his sexual demands.



Eager to save her husband, Anna-Marie shows a portrait of her great-grandmother to Vultow and explains why the woman is wearing only an ermine cloak. Her ancestor once killed a man to protect her honor, and the countess fears she will be forced to do the same. The painting comes to life and Anna-Marie's great-grandmother steps down from the frame and embraces Vultow, now drunk on champagne. He falls asleep and dreams Anna-Marie willingly gives herself to him, and when he awakens, he orders Adrian to be freed in the mistaken belief Anna-Marie is now his. When Vultow receives news that the Italian troops are advancing, he departs, and the count and countess are reunited.


Throughout the film a comedy subplot is formed around the characters of Sophie and Sprotti, the man whom she is engaged to. Sophie treats Sprotti with contempt and flirts with others right before his eyes. Teresa also plays in this comedic subplot and takes an interest in Sprotti.



Production

The film is notable as the first feature to include an outdoor sequence filmed at night, a difficult task due to the lighting that was necessary for Technicolor film at that time.[2] No expense was spared on the lavish gowns and sets and two thousand extras are reported to have been in the production.[2] Aside from one tune retained from the original stage production - "When Hearts are Young (in Springtime") - the songs for the film were composed by Edward Ward and Al Bryan. The film differed from most movie operettas of the time in that its musical numbers, various comic bits, and even a few characters are unrelated to the basic plot. No prints of the film are known to exist.[3]

Pre-Code sequences

The film was full of so much Pre-Code humor that it ran into censorship problems in many areas.[4] The film drew large crowds in Chicago where it played as an "Adults Only" feature. The soundtrack reveals some amazingly suggestive dialogue. In one sequence, Myrna Loy (playing a depraved dancer named Sophie) finds out Vultow (Walter Pidgeon) who had previously fallen for her charms and made love to her has met with Anna-Marie (Vivienne Segal) and fallen for her charms and has completely forgotten about her. Sophie declares "I'll get him back! I'll dance until his blood is steaming!" and proceeds to begin a smoldering dance number on top of a long dinner table in a very seductive manner in an attempt to lure back Vultow from the charms of Anna-Marie. In another scene, Vultow has a conversation with Anna-Marie. He believes he has had sexual relations with her during the previous night. In reality, however, he dozed off after drinking too much liquor and dreamed the entire episode. The conversation runs as follows:
Vultow: "Have you learned that sometimes defeat can be sweet? That even surrender may have its, umm, compensation?
Anna-Marie: "I've learned how a gallant soldier, umm, conducts himself in victory"
Vultow: Merely a question of practice, my dear."
Anna-Marie: "Ha Ha."
Vultow: "My victories have been numerous."
Anna-Marie: "Really?"

Songs

  • "Broken-Hearted Lover" (Sung by Allan Prior)
  • "Dream Away" (Sung by Walter Pidgeon and Vivienne Segal)
  • "When Hearts Are Young" (Sung by Walter Pidgeon and Extras)
  • "In a Gypsy Camp" (Danced by Myrna Loy)
  • "Shrimp's Dance" (Danced by Lupino Lane)
  • "Soldier Song" (Sung by Walter Pidgeon and Soldiers)
  • "You Still Retain That Girlish Figure" (Sung by Lupino Lane and Louise Fazenda)

Preservation

No film elements are known to survive. The large amount of Pre-Code content, which raised alarm even before the Code began to be enforced (in 1934) may have contributed to the film's disappearance as this would have made the film unacceptable for television back in the 1950s when a number of early Technicolor features were transferred to black and white film. The soundtrack, which was recorded on Vitaphone disks, survives intact.

Cast

Critical reception

The quality and beauty of the Technicolor photography was universally praised. One reviewer proclaimed that it was "one of the most thrilling and at the same time pictorially beautiful picture that has reached the screen for a long time. The color is clear, brilliant and remarkable for its depth, giving an illusion of third dimension."[5] Another reviewer noted the "beautiful indoor shots and the brilliance of its parade of costumes." [6] Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times observed, "The dialogue here may be suited to an operetta on the stage, but it is scarcely suited to scenes in a picture . . . As one witnesses the scenes being unfurled, it seems as though the actors were enjoying this film so much they did not care whether audiences found it entertaining or not."[7]





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Collection of Vitaphone Soundtracks 1926-1931

Collection of Vitaphone Soundtracks 1926-1931


This collection is an attempt to collect as many soundtracks to lost films and lost sequences from as many films from the early talkie period (1926-1931)  as possible to make them available to everyone as they should be. Hopefully this collection will bring awareness of these great films to this generation and those that will come afterwards and in the process maybe more of these lost films will turn up.

All of the soundtracks will be uploaded to the Internet Archive and can be found at the following URL: https://archive.org/details/VitaphoneSoundtrackCollection

This blog will contain information about the soundtracks that are uploaded.

If you want to contribute and have any soundtracks to lost or unavailable films or portions thereof please contact me at: koshkavitaphone@gmail.com and I will be glad to upload them on here so that everyone can enjoy them.

These soundtracks should be listened to and enjoyed and not sit in vaults gathering dust. I hope like-minded people will contact me and help me in this endeavor. Thanks and enjoy the soundtracks.

Koshka :)
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