12. Elstree Calling (1930)

Some stars made the transition into talking pictures quite easily, some had problems with the microphone, some had accents that didn't quite cut it with the characters they portrayed. Movie studios went into a tizzy advertising that the stars they've been enjoying for years could not only talk, but sing as well. Elstree Calling is an example of the campaign studios tried to advertise their talent. The movie is nothing more than a series of comedy and musical skits with a cast including those presently at studio British International Pictures as well as London music halls. (MGM made their own version The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Paramount did Paramount on Parade)

Now what would Alfred Hitchcock's involvement with the movie. Well its open to speculation. The credited director is Adrian Brunel and Hitchcock is listed as a director of sketches and interpolated items. The "interpolated items" consists of a running gag in between the sketches of a man (Gordon Harker) who is trying to watch the sketches on this new gizmo called a television set. Brunel claimed in his autobiography that Hitchcock directed those bits along with a "thriller" sketch starring Jameson Thomas and a Taming of the Shrew spoof with Donald Calthrop and Anna May Wong (Brunel said that he first shot the spoof but Hitchcock was brought in to reshoot the bit when producers found Brunel's work not funny enough).

Personally the "thriller" sketch is the best of the three relying on a dumb gag that I think was old in 1930. (Buster Keaton used the same gag spoofing William S. Hart in the 1922 short The Frozen North). The Taming of the Shrew spoof isn't really that funny and wastes Anna May Wong's talent. The TV repair sketches are as nondescript as you can get.

All in all, if you enjoy watching Vitaphone shorts on TCM or through Warner Archive, you'll enjoy Elstree Calling. Lily Morris is great in both sketches that she's in, Will Fyffe is enjoyable to watch in his and its pretty interesting to see the use of color in 4 sketches. Granted there are some misses. Emcee Tommy Handley makes you wonder who he was blackmailing in order for him to be cast. The Three Eddies in blackface (even though they were actually black) definitely won't fly today.