Rhapsody In Blue - King of Jazz (1930) - Paul Whiteman - George Gershwin

Here's an abridged version of the George Gershwin masterpiece composed for Paul Whiteman in 1924, from this 1930 2-strip Technicolor revue film.

The segment opens with a completely unrelated "Voodoo Dance" from Africa (?), followed by the opening clarinet solo danced by Jacques Cartier, and then Roy Bargy playing the piano solo.

Danced by Russell Markert Girls and Sisters G.

"King of Jazz" was the first motion picture to use a pre-recorded soundtrack made independently of the actual filming. Whiteman insisted that the entire soundtrack be pre-recorded in order to obtain the best sound, avoiding the poor recording conditions and extraneous noises found in a movie studio. Universal opposed the idea, but Whiteman insisted and prevailed over the reluctant studio executives. After the sound was recorded, the scene was filmed. Later, the film was synchronized to the soundtrack. This allowed the movie to be directed in the same manner as a silent film, with resulting sounds not affecting the completed film.

King of Jazz was the 19th talking picture filmed entirely in two-color Technicolor rather than simply including color sequences. At the time, the process employed red and green dyes, each with a dash of other colors mixed in, but no blue dye. King of Jazz was to showcase a spectacular presentation of "Rhapsody in Blue," so this presented a problem. Fortunately, the green dye Technicolor used can actually appear peacock blue (cyan) under some conditions, but acceptable results in this case would require very careful handling. Art director Herman Rosse and production director John Murray Anderson came up with ingenious solutions. Tests were made of various fabrics and pigments, and by using an all gray-and-silver background the bluish aspect of the dye was set off to best advantage. Filters were also used to inject pale blues into the scene being filmed.

The goal was to produce a finished film with pastel shades rather than bright colors. Nevertheless, as it appears in an original two-color Technicolor print, the sequence might best be described as a "Rhapsody in Turquoise". Later prints made from the original two-component negative, which had survived, make the blues look truer and more saturated than they appeared to audiences in 1930.
.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Rhapsody
• In
• Blue
• King
• of
• Jazz
• Paul
• Whiteman
• George
• Gershwin
• yt:quality=high

[Guugleable]

is he actually dancing on a drum \?

[boinx1234]

@Guugleable

Well, he's supposed to be...

[999Phineas]

I love how this is all live. 

[boinx1234]

@999Phineas

It's not. Read the notes I included beneath the clip.

[ProfSai]

This doesn't look like Technicolor. There is no green, and usually technicolor is missing Blue. Maybe it was one of the other two-strip processes, like Multicolor?

[boinx1234]

@ProfSai

It is two-strip Technicolor, altered for the VHS release, if you believe the poster below.

[liveindablink]

blacks invented Jazz

[MikeBlitzMag]

Paul Whiteman was an extraordinarily gifted visionary, whose impact continues to resonate nearly a century later. He is greatly missed.

[ProfSai]

@mlaprarie Sounds complicated. Silvery-gray would show up as yellow on Technicolor, and would be very close to fleshtone. It seems to me that it would be easier to replace the usual red/green with red/cyan. That would get you the proper whites we can see, and still keep flesh-tone as a reproducible color.

[kaiserbill5711]

the choreography looks very Busby Berkeleyesque I wonder if he was involved?

[shangrigreige]

swell

[norrisonthespot]

Oliver Hardy does a grand job introducing it all :)

[Phosonell]

@mlaprarie Thank you very much, that´s very interesting. Can you explain how it has been managed that the blue dye only colored the silver-grey parts of the picture?

[kovik62]

This is the highlight in a movie filled with so many fabulous numbers. It's a crime to film history that this terrific, landmark production isn't restored and released officially on DVD. We still have to put up with that low-grade VHS transfer from the '80's.