A Bizarre Musical Number From 1934

[KidEllington]

i cracked up when the girl randomly screamed at "there's been a murder a whiterby..."

[sussmanbern]

This is from MY GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK, a 1934 short (17 min) from MGM.

Charles Judel is "Philo Holmes"; Franklin Pangborn is "Dr. Watkins".

[JubalCalif]

Ah, good ol' Franklin Pangborn! Was there ever such a "red-blooded American he-man"? What a stud! Every 1930's woman's wet dream! Don't make 'em like that anymore! THANKS for sharing this bizarre but fun clip with us! :)

[Augie47]

The most MACHO guy in Hollywood in the 1930s! Women melted under his caresses. Great to see this short clip. Almost made me queer though...

[jvbrown1995]

I love to hear a singing Sherlock Holmes. Funny!

How surreal!

[WizardOfHumor1989]

@jvbrown1995 the voice of stromboli and the coachman in Pinoccio.

[raininmyst]

LMAO they want to go with them to help solve the crime!!!

[TigerRocket]

I've always thought musicals are bizarre by nature, but this is. . . . . I dunno. It would almost make sense for the next scene to be a dance routine around the body.

[IDLERACER]

I wonder who's idea it was to combine "How Dry I Am" and "Glory Glory Halleluja" into one song at 1:40

[scotpens]

The Civil War-era marching song is actually called "John Brown's Body" or "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The medley also contains bits of Chopin's Funeral March and the folk songs "Good Night Ladies" and "Coming Through the Rye."

[hebneh]

Now what the hell was that??

I assume the lead character's name is a combination of two other fictional detectives, Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes. Plus his assistant is named Watkins, based on "Elementary, my dear Watson."

This is pretty nuts. It starts out like a regular nightclub scene and then gets increasingly surreal.

[44sd44]

wizard of ozish

you know hard/expensive it was to do color bak then? very

they needed alot of hot light

[scottw11354]

The birth of hip-hop

[Mr1920s]

From what picture is this?

[medamine39]

"My Grandfather's Clock" 1934

[saxophoney]

This was filmed in that odd "two color technicolor" process. It looks sorat creepy. Very fun though. Thanks for posting.

[perfectjazz78]

This is actually a faded example of three strip color from 1934

[jerryaltman]

@perfectjazz78 Uhnnn, I see distints reds, blues, tellows... too distint to two color system...

Maybe its a faded 16mm copy from a early 3 color technicolor short clip. Before feature films, 3 color (3strip) technicolor had some tests few years prior.

[perfectjazz78]

@jerryaltman Check IMDB or MGM notes, This was released in 3 strip, but they were experimenting with it.

[jerryaltman]

@perfectjazz78 Yes. But it is some tripack print, cause original 3 color techinicolor prints never fades. The soft image indicates that it's probably 16mm.

[banate]

I didn't know Franklin Pangborn could sing! He's not bad!

[Lockbar]

This early color is interesting, but actually makes me a little queezy. Something about the un-naturalness of the color tones?

[fromthesidelines]

This was a from a 1934 MGM two-reeler {one of their "Colortone Musicals", in 'two-color' Technicolor}, one of a series of similarly bizarre musical fantasies...

[cushtichavi]

we need stuff like this today to get us out of the depression i love this

[fuzzbear6240]

Perfectjazz78, That's a great one! Thanks. Regards, J.

[dadoctor19]

Clip is from "My Grandfather's Clock" with Charles Judels as Philo Holmes and Franklin Pangborn as Dr. Watkins.

[smurfswacker]

Where on earth did this come from? A Sherlock Holmes pastiche? With music? In Technicolor?

Aw, who cares, as long as there are plenty of skimpily-clad Technicolor chorines to study?