Big Jazz Band

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 702, 29 June 1929, Page 25

Big Jazz Band

“CLOSE HARMONY” COMING

Melody and Romance for Regent

LILTING saxophones, purring strings and syncopated drumbeats form a melodious background to a cheery romance in “Close Harmony,” coming next week to the Regent. Nancy Carroll and Charles Rogers are the stars of this captivating Paramount talkie. Jack Oakie is a leading Player and Harry Green, the Australian, makes his first talkie appearance.

T UNQUESTIONABLY, a wide field awaits the musical talkie—the film in which an entertaining plot is blended with music and song. Such a one is “Close

Harmony.” Specially written for the purpose, it is an ideal talkie. Lilting music, and the atmosphere of “top-line” vaudeville, lifts “Close Harmony” right out of the usual run of film plays, while the sound I and speech achieve a new standard of

life-like production. The story tells of Marjorie Merwin, singer at a big theatre, who fails in love with West, the young jazz-band leader, who is being given a trial. Discovering that the boy is about to lose his position because of the arrival of two famous male vaudeville stars, she “vamps’* the artists and causes them to cancel their contracts.

West regains his position, but is furious with Marjorie when he learns her method of settling the problem. She is obliged to confess to the vaudeville players.

West is once more threatened with the loss of his position, but he goes on the stage that evening determined to be the “hit of the show.” Playing

no fewer than five instruments himself, and leading his band like one possessed, he brings down the house and consolidates his position for good and all.

“I’m All a’Twitter” and ”1 Wanna Go Places and Do Things” are two of “Close Harmony’s” numbers. The picture was directed by Edward Sutherland and John Cromwell, the New York stage director, from an original story by Elsie Janis and Gene Markey.