"The Show Of Shows" 1929 Technicolor -In Natural Color - All Talking All Star Musical Revue All Talking Vitaphone Pre-Code
Segments
Prologue — In a scene set in the French Revolution, Hobart Bosworth as an executioner and H.B. Warner as an aristocrat who is executed on a guillotine.
"Military March"— Led by Monte Blue and Pasadena American Legion Fife and Drum Corps.
"What's Become of the Floradora Boys?" — Myrna Loy, Marian Nixon, Patsy Ruth Miller, Lloyd Hamilton, Ben Turpin, Lupino Lane, and many others in a partial parody of the Florodora Edwardian stage show.
"$20 Bet"— Fay attempts to sing but is constantly interrupted by Chester Morris, Jack Mulhall and Sojin Kamiyama.
"Motion Picture Pirates" — Featuring Ted Lewis with a fantasy number set of a pirate ship headed by cut-throat Noah Beery and Tully Marshall with Wheeler Oakman, Kalla Pasha, and other well-known movie villains of the era. A group of beautiful girls are captured and saved from an awful fate (almost) by light comedian Johnny Arthur sending up Douglas Fairbanks. The pirates literally blow him overboard. Finally, the day is saved by Ted Lewis.
"Dear Little Pup" — Performed by Frank Fay. (Shot in black and white.)
"Ping Pongo" — Performed by Winnie Lightner. (Shot in black and white.)
"The Only Song I Know" — Performed by Nick Lucas. (Shot in black and white.)
"If I Could Learn to Love (As Well as I Fight)" — In a brief introductory sequence, missing from circulating prints, French lightweight boxer Georges Carpentier is introduced by Frank Fay, who provokes Carpentier into lightly tapping him with his formidable hands, to which Fay comically overreacts and then beats a hasty retreat. Carpentier sings here against an Eiffel Tower backdrop accompanied by Patsy Ruth Miller and Alice White and later a singing and dancing chorus of girls.
"Recitations" — Featuring Beatrice Lillie, Louise Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton, and Frank Fay. A series of stark poetic recitations that are first performed by each performer whole and then line by line, until when mixed up they form a bizarre and suggestive product.
"Meet My Sister" — Introduced by a deliberately nervous Richard Barthelmess followed by Hollywood sisters, including Dolores and Helene Costello, singing "My Sister", along with Loretta Young and Sally Blane, Sally O'Neil and Molly O'Day, Alice Day and Marceline Day, Marion Byron and Harriette Lake (later known as Ann Sothern), Viola Dana and Shirley Mason, Lola and Armida Vendrell, and Alberta and Adamae Vaughn. All of the pairs were sisters in real life except for Marion Byron and Harriette Lake, who were not related. The song is partly compromised by having each set of 'twins' representing a different country against a backdrop serving to illustrate each in a display of international stereotypes
Intermission— Title Card
"Singin' in the Bathtub" — Winnie Lightner and a bunch of male chorines send up "Singin' in the Rain" against a huge bathroom set, concluding with Lightner and ex-wrestler Bull Montana. This number was originally in black and white on the release prints.
"Just an Hour of Love" – Performed by Irene Bordoni
"Chinese Fantasy" — Introduced, via sharp barks, by canine performer Rin Tin Tin, with Nick Lucas singing "Li-Po-Li" and Myrna Loy dancing.
"Frank Fay with Sid Silvers" — A comedy skit with Sid Silvers stepping in as an annoying spectator who is auditioning for a solo spot by showing Frank Fay his own imitation of Al Jolson singing "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody".
"A Bicycle Built for Two" — Another music hall pastiche featuring Chester Conklin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Chester Morris, Gertrude Olmstead, Sally Eilers and others singing the 1890s standard "Daisy Bell" .
"If Your Best Friend Won't Tell You (Why Should I?)" — Sid Silvers back with Frank Fay singing about the horrors of halitosis.
"Larry Ceballos' Black and White Girls" — Introduced by Sid Silvers and danced by chorus girls dressed up in black and white dresses. Music instrumental "Jumping Jack".
"Your Love Is All I Crave" — A torch song of lost love sung by Frank Fay. Fay introduces the number with a topical series of jokes:
"King Richard III (in excerpt from Henry VI, Part 3)" — A Shakespeare extract introduced and recited by John Barrymore.
"Mexican Moonshine" — Comedy sketch with Monte Blue as a condemned man and Frank Fay as his executioner accompanied by Lloyd Hamilton, Albert Gran, and others as soldiers.
"Lady Luck" — The film's finale that is over a quarter of an hour. It starts with Alexander Gray singing a full-blooded version of the song "Lady Luck" inside an enormous ballroom set with huge windows revealing a midnight green sky. Tap dancers (both white and black groups) dance on a highly polished wooden floor. This all ends as Betty Compson walks down the full length of the stage in procession to meet Alexander Gray, and with the whole cast assembled, hundreds of colored streamers drop from the roof as "Lady Luck" reaches a finale.