This film is an interesting curio of the progress of early sound films and the musical glut that killed off the genre for several years. The original film (in Technicolor--no longer) is lavish and is very much an operetta with sung dialogue, connecting musical sequences, and musical underscoring. It's all way-overplayed and the morals on display are rather questionable. What is interesting is the continuity of music and scenes, outdoor recording and camera work, camera movement, and tracking shots which required pre-or post recording after the film had been finished. The whole picture is edited and recorded very professionally probably by the most advanced studio in these techniques at the time. The film is technically impressive and if you're into old movies its worth 63 minutes of your time.
10 Reviews
Wonder what Belasco thought?
bkoganbing9 January 2018
Sweet Kitty Bellairs is a great example of what I maintained in those early days
of sound. All the studios big and small were scrambling to purchase all kinds
of plays, anything with dialog so that the players could talk. Especially the new
ones with stage training to replace the pantomimists of silent days.
In the case of Sweet Kitty Bellairs this was an old chestnut of a British Regency comedy of manners where it was decided to put music to it. Nothing terribly distinguished but serviceable for the plot. And no one seems to be taking credit. Note five different people in the credits are listed, but not one of those five says 'music by' or lyrics by'. I'm sure there's a story.
This film plays like a romance novel set to music with a dashing highwayman who is also an aristocrat, a shy poet, and a woman of a scandalous reputation. Add to that some Regency Era fops and a dirty old lord with gout and you've got Sweet Kitty Bellairs.
The film was old fashioned when it was released but it is an interesting antique and reflective of what producer David Belasco gave to the public in his highlight days during the gaslight era before World War I.
As Belasco was still alive when this came out, I wonder what he thought of it?
In the case of Sweet Kitty Bellairs this was an old chestnut of a British Regency comedy of manners where it was decided to put music to it. Nothing terribly distinguished but serviceable for the plot. And no one seems to be taking credit. Note five different people in the credits are listed, but not one of those five says 'music by' or lyrics by'. I'm sure there's a story.
This film plays like a romance novel set to music with a dashing highwayman who is also an aristocrat, a shy poet, and a woman of a scandalous reputation. Add to that some Regency Era fops and a dirty old lord with gout and you've got Sweet Kitty Bellairs.
The film was old fashioned when it was released but it is an interesting antique and reflective of what producer David Belasco gave to the public in his highlight days during the gaslight era before World War I.
As Belasco was still alive when this came out, I wonder what he thought of it?
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever Amber
boblipton19 August 2010
Claudia Dell gets a star build-up in this one and although the camera clearly loves her, particularly in mid length profile, this whole movie of an adventuress in the city of Bath is so miscalculated that it is occasionally embarrassing. The performances are pitched for the stage, rather than the movie screen and while this style of light opera might have suited Offenbach and Gilbert & Sullivan, by this period, the only other extant examples are those moments in Marx Brothers movies when Groucho sings "I want my Shirt" to something from CARMEN and occasional revivals of THE STUDENT PRINCE. The best version of that is a silent movie.
The whole thing is interestingly shot to look like a Hogarth series and if the music is rarely distinguished, at least "Peggy's Leg" has a little antiquated ribaldry about it. It is fascinating to see Walter Pidgeon as a young man and Miss Dell is lovely. She is reputed to be the model for the Columbia Pictures torch lady.
However, the story is that there was such a glut of poor movie musicals in 1929 and 1930 that the public refused to see them, killing the genre until 1933. Looking at this one, I can believe it.
The whole thing is interestingly shot to look like a Hogarth series and if the music is rarely distinguished, at least "Peggy's Leg" has a little antiquated ribaldry about it. It is fascinating to see Walter Pidgeon as a young man and Miss Dell is lovely. She is reputed to be the model for the Columbia Pictures torch lady.
However, the story is that there was such a glut of poor movie musicals in 1929 and 1930 that the public refused to see them, killing the genre until 1933. Looking at this one, I can believe it.
Charming Bit of Froth
drednm27 May 2008
A musical mix-up of identities, duels, and love, SWEET KITTY BELLAIRS takes place in the English city of Bath in 1793. The plot involves jealous lovers, intrigues, a highwayman, and masks as Kitty (Claudia Dell) tries to unscramble a few mysteries and win a shy lord (Walter Pidgeon). Amazingly this fluff comes from hard-boiled Warner Brothers.
Not a bad film at all, this one simply got lost in the glut of musicals in the early talkie period. Originally shot in Technicolor, this film survives only in B&W and was one of many "operettas" to get released after the success of RIO RITA.
Dell is very pretty but has only a so-so singing voice. Pidgeon seems oddly cast but handles the songs well. Ernest Torrence is a surprise as the blustering husband. June Collyer plays Julia. Flora Finch plays the old gossip. Lionel Belmore, Tom Ricketts, and Arthur Edmund Carewe also co-star.
A highlight is the ribald song "Peggy's Leg."
Not a bad film at all, this one simply got lost in the glut of musicals in the early talkie period. Originally shot in Technicolor, this film survives only in B&W and was one of many "operettas" to get released after the success of RIO RITA.
Dell is very pretty but has only a so-so singing voice. Pidgeon seems oddly cast but handles the songs well. Ernest Torrence is a surprise as the blustering husband. June Collyer plays Julia. Flora Finch plays the old gossip. Lionel Belmore, Tom Ricketts, and Arthur Edmund Carewe also co-star.
A highlight is the ribald song "Peggy's Leg."
Altogether lavish, silly, trite and dull...
ccmiller149221 August 2010
Altogether lavish, silly, trite and dull...this is the sort of thing that is handled best by Sheridan, Congreve and later by Oscar Wilde. The script lacks the charm and wit of those masters to put it over. Without that it's only very dull trifle, looking good but tasting terrible. The opening chorus is overladen, cumbersome and sluggish like most of the music and acting. Labored and graceless.
On the plus side, the sets and costumes are lavish and great fun can be had in seeing a very young Walter Pidgeon in knee britches and periwig warbling his love song, Claudia Dell warbling hers, and then the two of them intertwining their separate songs in a resulting duet. For me, that was the high and sole enjoyable point of this unfortunate enterprise.
On the plus side, the sets and costumes are lavish and great fun can be had in seeing a very young Walter Pidgeon in knee britches and periwig warbling his love song, Claudia Dell warbling hers, and then the two of them intertwining their separate songs in a resulting duet. For me, that was the high and sole enjoyable point of this unfortunate enterprise.
Very, very dated...
planktonrules15 October 2016
In the very early 1930s, operettas were quite popular. Films like "The Rogue Song" and "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" were just a couple such movies and less than a decade later the style was resurrected with the Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy films. However, by the mid-1940s the genre was just about dead due to changing tastes and when seen today the pictures come off as very strange and old fashioned. Based on what I've seen, I can understand why they are no longer popular.
When "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" begins, a group of rich 18th century folks are heading to the spa town of Bath for a holiday. However, their carriage is waylaid by bandits and the cheeky masked leader decides that instead of stealing all their valuables that he'd just take a kiss from Kitty. While she protests, it's pretty obvious to tell that she is quite taken by this stranger. And, what's also obvious is that the nice man she later meets at the spa is actually the bandit dressed in the fine clothes of a gentleman. What will come of this? See the film (or, better yet, don't).
This film was creaky with age and left me very, very bored. Much of the music just put me to sleep but the bad acting made it even worse. Particularly bad was Ernest Torrence who just didn't seem to know how to deliver his lines...though he would improve in later films. Perhaps he just wasn't used to sound films. All I know is that the movie left me very cold and this sort of silly fluff just didn't appeal to me. Far less well made and interesting than a MacDonald/Eddy film.
When "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" begins, a group of rich 18th century folks are heading to the spa town of Bath for a holiday. However, their carriage is waylaid by bandits and the cheeky masked leader decides that instead of stealing all their valuables that he'd just take a kiss from Kitty. While she protests, it's pretty obvious to tell that she is quite taken by this stranger. And, what's also obvious is that the nice man she later meets at the spa is actually the bandit dressed in the fine clothes of a gentleman. What will come of this? See the film (or, better yet, don't).
This film was creaky with age and left me very, very bored. Much of the music just put me to sleep but the bad acting made it even worse. Particularly bad was Ernest Torrence who just didn't seem to know how to deliver his lines...though he would improve in later films. Perhaps he just wasn't used to sound films. All I know is that the movie left me very cold and this sort of silly fluff just didn't appeal to me. Far less well made and interesting than a MacDonald/Eddy film.
Early talkie ...(singie ?)... lame plot.
ksf-217 January 2018
Way too heavy on the violin and musical numbers. This one would have benefited from a spiffing up of the script. Claudia Dell, in one of her earlier starring roles is the charming, flirtatious Kitty Bellairs, in this LONG period piece. They keep breaking out in song, but more of a story would have made it a better film. The one bright spot here is Walter Pidgeon, from such awesome films as Mrs. Miniver, Forbidden Planet, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and SO many others. I won't talk about the story here, because my god, it goes on and on. All quite inane. Co-stars Ernest Torrance, who had been around hollywood for YEARS. This seems to be based on a novel by Egerton and Agnes Castle (Egerton ? must be a french name, as he was born in france). Directed by Alfred Green, who had started out in silents. While he didn't receive an oscar as director, several of his film stars DID receive oscars for their performance. At least it's all over in 63 minutes, a Warner Brothers shortie. Skip this one, unless you are a fan of the actors involved. Sound and picture quality not good in the version i saw, but I guess for history's sake, we're lucky to still have it around.
Back when dueling was a matter of honor.
mark.waltz2 December 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I look at this as a burlesque of both period drawing room comedies and operettas, both silly and dated today, and this seems to be having a great time lampooning both. Claudia Dell is the sweet but flirtatious title character, no rival in the singing department to 1930 movie musical operetta stars Jeanette MacDonald, Grace Moore or Vivienne Segal, but charming and funny, and Walter Pidgeon has a surprisingly good base voice as the dashing lord who's rivaling a handsome but determined highwayman Perry Askam for her affections.
There's added confusion with the married June Collyer and Ernest Torrence (in the type of role that Charles Coburn would take on a decade later), far apart in years, and leading to the misunderstanding that Pidgeon is after her, not Dell. This has much of the dialog sung through in a very funny manner, with some of the musical moments reminding me of the rhythmic dialog singing in "Love Me Tonight", a more well known musical film made two years later. The period costumes and sets are quite handsome, and the cast is having a grand time. At just over an hour, this is dated fun, but probably not for most tastes.
There's added confusion with the married June Collyer and Ernest Torrence (in the type of role that Charles Coburn would take on a decade later), far apart in years, and leading to the misunderstanding that Pidgeon is after her, not Dell. This has much of the dialog sung through in a very funny manner, with some of the musical moments reminding me of the rhythmic dialog singing in "Love Me Tonight", a more well known musical film made two years later. The period costumes and sets are quite handsome, and the cast is having a grand time. At just over an hour, this is dated fun, but probably not for most tastes.
Avoid
gbill-7487731 January 2018
A Delightful and Obscure Early Musical
Revelator_8 August 2020
I want to thank Richard Barrios for praising this little gem in his definitive book "A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film." Otherwise I'd never have known about "Sweet Kitty Bellairs." Even if I had I might not have bothered. A 1930 screen operetta based on a 1903 play set in 18th century England--doesn't sound very enticing, does it? But "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" is genuinely sweet: an exquisitely stylized confection made by people well aware of the material's absurdity and delighted by its artificiality. Far from being a stuffy, sexless period piece, this is a saucy and buoyant pre-code escapade, free of cloying sentiment and reveling in the absurdities of powdered-wig codes of honor and sexual propriety.
It's short and sweet too. Director Alfred E. Green keeps the story galloping for 63 minutes (with tracking shots of highwaymen singing on horseback). Considering the date, this is fluid and lively film-making, not at all stagy. The witty songs move the story along and don't try to be showstoppers. The lead actors (Claudia Dell, Walter Pidgeon, and baritone Perry Askam) sparkle with irony, but Ernest Torrence walks away with the film. Playing a cloddish jealous husband, he's delighted by the role's buffoonery, sputtering into falsetto at the ends of his lines. And as a former member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, he knows how to sing! Alas, by the time "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" was released the public had been so glutted with bad musicals that it neglected the good ones. Hence the obscurity of this Bonbon of a movie.
It's short and sweet too. Director Alfred E. Green keeps the story galloping for 63 minutes (with tracking shots of highwaymen singing on horseback). Considering the date, this is fluid and lively film-making, not at all stagy. The witty songs move the story along and don't try to be showstoppers. The lead actors (Claudia Dell, Walter Pidgeon, and baritone Perry Askam) sparkle with irony, but Ernest Torrence walks away with the film. Playing a cloddish jealous husband, he's delighted by the role's buffoonery, sputtering into falsetto at the ends of his lines. And as a former member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, he knows how to sing! Alas, by the time "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" was released the public had been so glutted with bad musicals that it neglected the good ones. Hence the obscurity of this Bonbon of a movie.
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