An early Vitaphone film, this Warner Brothers short apparently was one created using a very complicated system through which an accompanying record was synchronized with a movie camera. There were several serious setbacks for such a system (such as if a film skipped--it became out of sync for the rest of the film plus the records quickly wore out--and 20 showings was the normal life-span of the records) and even though it produced excellent sound, it was eventually replaced. The last of the Vitaphone films were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.
Not surprisingly, a portion of this film (the very beginning) is missing due to nitrate decomposition. I say this isn't surprising because nitrate film stock is highly volatile--and had a strong tendency to decompose (turning to powder or melting) or even explode! As a result, a huge portion of the films before the 1940s have simply vanished. In this case, the first 1:58 seconds are gone. Hopefully, the rest of the film will one day be discovered and restored. What is surprising, though, is that ANY of these Vitaphone films exist in their entirety, as the record and film rarely stayed together. So, dedicated people had to match up the recording with the film and then work on restoring the entire package.
Trixie Friganza stars in this vaudeville-style short. What makes it unusual compared to so many of the Vitaphone shorts was that Ms. Friganza had a rather extensive list of film credits both before this film (in shorts) as well as afterwords. Most Vitaphone shorts featured people whose only appearance was in that particular shorts.
As for Ms. Friganza, her song numbers were definitely not particularly good--nor were they really intended to be. They were comical pieces and not in the least subtle. In many ways, Friganza looked almost like a chubbier sister of Marie Dressler and he had a real presence about her. And, despite her girth and age, she really, really put her all into the film--particularly the hula song later in the film. None of this is great but it was still rather endearing--as she was certainly the trooper! I particularly liked to watch her acumen with the Bass Cello!