The Candid Kid (1938) User Reviews

One of the other guys in my high school clarinet section . . .

[oscaralbert · 4/10 · 8 December 2016]

. . . has his own music label--"Distortion Records." Listening to this sadly Unrestored soundtrack brought Eric W. to mind. If a Warner Theater had played THE CANDID KID with as much distortion on its music soundtrack as occurs on the 2008 Turner DVD release for GOLD DIGGERS IN PAR!S on which it's included, the projectionist NEVER would have left the local Bijou alive! Notes oscillate here about as much as the sirens on European cop cars during 1950s Art House Films, only with less purity of tone. Seeing as how Autotune Technology was invented in plenty of time to have fixed this CANDID KID by 2008, it shows why the Atlanta Braves brought the worst team in MLB to "Turner Field" for most of the 2016 season. Apparently, "Turner" and "Quality" are antonyms! If you bought this disc, just remember that the same letters which spell "Turner" also can spell "Return," as in "return it and get your money back!" The plot of CANDID KID seems to have been pecked out by a pack of monkeys set loose in an old typing classroom. The "acting" here is just as lame as the story, and the main characters are called by their Real Life names to help finger the guiltiest parties. It's just too bad that Marion Mitchell Morrison doesn't sashay in to make this farce complete.

Silvers produces gold.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 5 September 2016]

It is nice that many one and two reel shorts have survived film decay and are giving audiences a chance to discover starlets who never went any further or future stars on forgotten works. Josephine Huston falls into the first category, while future Broadway star Phil Silvers is part of the later. Along with such performers as Judy Garland, Deanna Durbin, June Allyson and Betty Hutton, Silvers made his debut in a short, and while much of what he does here is dated, signs of his comic genius are present. Another comic present reminds me of Red Skeleton, but obviously he went no further.

Pretty Josephine Huston is totally forgotten, and perhaps Warner Brothers thought that they might have another Jeanette MacDonald on their hand, but Warners musicals never went high brow. This is a gimmicky musical short with a nice opening production numbers, another one about Hot Tamales and of course, Silver's cheery clowning. A finale involving Huston singing among department store displays is a nice creative set-up. The plot of Huston and Silvers as photographers is slight, but novelty numbers add quality to make it a nice nostalgic visit to what the public got to enjoy in the cinema before television came along. And remember. If you escape from a mental institution, don't go back. People will think that you are crazy!

Get that picture!

[horn-5 · 22 December 2006]

Singer Josephine Huston is featured as a member of a Candid Camera Club. The club stages a contest, in which each member is assigned to go out and get some difficult and unusual picture.

Josephine's assignment is to get a picture of herself singing in a gondola. and this isn't easy as NYC has very few gondolas on the streets. The story allows for the introduction of several specialty acts---the Gae Foster Girls, the Anthony Morelli Sextette --- as the contestants visit several night clubs.

Josephine gets her picture and wins first prize when a friend breaks a department store window, that has a gondola on display, and she goes through the window to sit in the gondola. Sings while there. also.

Smile, You're In The Candid Camera Club

[bkoganbing · 15 November 2011]

The Candid Kid is a short subject from Warner Brothers that was produced to display the singing talents of Josephine Huston and the comic talents of a brash new comedian to the silver screen, one Phil Silvers. The most starting thing about the film is seeing Phil Silvers with a full head of hair. I tend to think it was a toupee because he was bald in his early feature films.

Phil's brashness is something you have to take in small doses I've always felt, but the Phil Silvers we all know and remember is present here as he draws an assignment to get himself photographed in a padded cell eating a hot tamale.

Josephine and Phil belong to the Candid Camera Club and her assignment is almost as ridiculous, she has to get a picture of herself in a gondola. Outside of Venice they're pretty scarce. Josephine sings a couple of forgettable songs by Saul Chaplin and Sammy Cahn and also sings Rudy Vallee's hit from Italy Vieni Vieni. That this short was included on a DVD with Vallee's Golddiggers Go To Paris was no accident.

The Candid Kid is a pleasant enough musical interlude.