Five and a half minutes into the 1931 film, Morals for Women1 (1931), directed by Mort Blumenstock, the female lead played by Bessie Love goes dancing with her returning hometown boyfriend, played by John Holland. A montage sequence showing them enjoying New York’s nightlife resolves with them at a restaurant. The music on the soundtrack is I’ll Be a Friend With Pleasure.
Twenty-one minutes into the film, David Rollins, as Bessie Love’s character’s brother, is out with pals in a café or speakeasy. A jazz band is heard (but not seen). There’s a hot cornet break and, but wait! For a few seconds it sounded like Bix!
At thirty-two minutes, Bessie Love peels a page off a calendar. July 13 becomes July 14, 1931. At nearly forty minutes into this fifty-one minute film, I’ll Be a Friend With Pleasure is heard again.
Is there any evidence from existing research that Bix could have recorded a film soundtrack for a New York-produced feature in mid-1931?
In a letter home on March 4, 1931 from the 44th Street Hotel in New York, Bix wrote: “I may go back on the camel hour or syncronize (sic) movies…”2
This is a wonderfully evocative offhand remark. Researching that is problematic. Since many film prints are lost, we can’t have them all. There’s currently no systematic way to view New York-produced films of 1930-1931 compared to listening to hot jazz records that have been made chronologically available on CD reissues.
There is also this general consensus: “…not much is documented in his summer, 1931, activities.”3
Renting agent, George Kraslow (4/8/59): “During the next few weeks Bix did no outside work of any kind and did not leave the building save to buy gin.”4
This seems pretty final, but is it? If Bix were hired to record a film soundtrack, where would it have taken place?
I’ll Be a Friend With Pleasure was recorded September 8, 19305 and released October 24, 19306 for Victor, located in Camden, New Jersey. “…Jesse Lasky’s announcement in October 1929 that Paramount aimed to create a “complete production center” in New York,…”Our plans call for the creation of a miniature Hollywood in Astoria,” Lasky beamed…February 1930…To direct…shorts (Larry) Kent’s staff now included…Morton Blumenstock…”7
The director of Morals for Women (formerly Big City Interlude) was definitely directing in New York.
“Because so many films produced in the East at this time were equally marginal (and therefore hard to research), historians have generally found it easier to conclude that there simply was no film production going on outside Paramount or Warner Bros., a complete misreading of the often feverish activity actually taking place.”8
Johnny Powell (10/31/61): “…we would go to Loew’s New York Theater and attend the 8:30 a.m. movie. We would sit in the balcony with a jug of gin under the seat. Whenever someone in the film took a drink we would join in. Some of those “society” films featured considerable drinking and it got to be hard on us to stumble out of the theater at 11:00 a.m. drunk, into the bright sun, with the press of the crowded sidewalk.”9
Another evocative description, with Bix going to the nearby movies quite often. But it doesn’t prove Bix never had anything to do after 11:00 a.m.
Where were some of the talking-picture studios of New York at that time? E.B. Kohlenbeck’s American Sound Studios, 344 W. 44th Street10; Powers Cinephone…723 Seventh Avenue (New Jersey). Powers soon moved…to a converted factory building at 29-20 40th Avenue in Long Island City11; Caravel Studio at 29-18 40th Avenue; Voca Film – 122 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, became Cromotone; Ideal…opposite 86th Street in Manhattan12; …Later in 1930 Louis Simon…appeared in a series of…comedies at Ideal, at least one of which was directed by Morton Blumenstock.13
The talking-picture studios were all around Bix, and his various home addresses.
“(Richardson) Turner offered them the use of his uncle’s 15-room apartment at 1 West 72nd, the famed Dakota…The flat was all soundproofed…”14 They could have recorded there.
June 16, 1931 letter home from Bix: “…I’ll give you my definite address in a few days – until then – 2460 32nd St. Astoria L.I.” The address supplied is the home of Rex Gavitte,15 (Smith) Ballew’s bassist.16
“Late June or early July – Bix moved into the grand (sic) floor of a new apartment building at 43-60 46th Street, Sunnyside, Queens.”17
There is no music credit on the film. Is there a reason why it couldn’t be Smith Ballew’s musicians with Bix?
The appearance of the date on the calendar in the film doesn’t prove when the film was made, though there’s evidence from myriad other films that dates on letters, calendars, checks, etc. were intended to be current. Why? Because young audiences don’t want to see an old movie. Movies should be up to date! This doesn’t explain why a distributor named Amity Pictures18 would take two dozen films made in 1930 – 1931 and reissue them in 1937 including Morals for Women. Nevertheless, the tight economics of the poverty row studios mandated the films to be shot in five to ten days and up and running locally as soon as possible if they hoped to make a profit and to get further financing.
Finally, I don’t mean to state beyond a doubt that Bix is the cornet player heard briefly in this film. However, their use of I’ll Be a Friend With Pleasure, is certainly very interesting, and Bix could have recorded for this and maybe other yet to be discovered New York-made films of 1931.
~
David Drazin is a jazz pianist and silent-film accompanist.
This article made use of three books:
- Bix, The Leon Bix Beiderbecke Story, by Philip R. and Linda K. Evans; Prelike Press 1998.
- Bix, Man and Legend, by Richard L. Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt; Schirmer Books 1974.
- Hollywood on the Hudson, by Richard Koszarski; Rutgers University Press 2010.
In the notes the books will be referred to respectively as: Evans, Sudhalter and Koszarski.
Notes:
1. Morals for Women is available on DVD from Alpha Video and is currently on You Tube.
2. Evans, page 533.
3. Sudhalter, page 327.
4. Evans, page 544.
5. Evans, page 517.
6. Evans, page 518.
7. Koszarski, page 204.
8. Koszarski, page 239.
9. Evans, page 537.
10. Koszarski, page 235.
11. Koszarski, page 231.
12. Koszarski, page 231.
13. Koszarski, page 237.
14. Sudhalter, page 325.
15. Evans, page 541.
16. Sudhalter, page 326.
17. Evans, page 543.
18. IMDB Data Base.
I gave a link to Dave Drazin’s blog about Bix in the Bixography Forum. You can read what I posted in
http://www.network54.com/Forum/27140/message/1399827535/Bix+in+the+soundtrack+of+a+movie-
POSTING ON BEHALF OF DAVID DRAZIN:
May 19, 2014 A Reply to Albert Haim, by David Drazin
Thank you, Albert Haim!
Mr. Haim asks: “If George Olsen and His Music played the sound track for “Morals for Women,” why would he bring in Bix…”
At approximately five minutes into the film, John Holland as Bessie Love’s hometown boyfriend has convinced her to meet him for a date at a hotel restaurant. A montage scene of them dancing accompanied by: I’ll Be a Friend with Pleasure follows. The montage dissolves to them shown seated at a small table in a nightclub or restaurant. The George Olsen Orchestra is then shown in a wide shot encompassing a large nightclub. A dance floor is visible. People sitting at tables are seen at the bottom edge of the frame. Two lines of chorus girls enter from above and behind the band and descend steps that face stage right and stage left respectively. They form a line in front of the band. The band is playing: Hearts and Flowers (Tobani).
In a second closer shot the chorus girls are shown dressed in Victorian clothes and begin singing. The lyrics are somewhat hard to discern though they reference selling flowers. Their voices are “off mike.” The next shot returns to Bessie Love and John Holland at their table.
There are no “cover shots” that show the movie actors in the same room as the George Olsen Orchestra. The song shown doesn’t appear to have been made for the film in a studio. While the one minute and seventeen seconds of George Olsen’s Orchestra is another interesting sidelight of the film, this footage might be more accurately described as newsreel or location footage that has not too convincingly been edited into the film to suggest that the actors are in a big nightclub. Considering the fine recordings the George Olsen Orchestra was doing at the time for Victor, a live recording of part of a novelty number is a missed opportunity.
Although it currently isn’t possible to verify if George Olsen did the music for the entire film, I believe a close reading of the “text” (i.e. the sequence of shots in the film) indicates to the contrary, and that the other music for this film was done separately.
I hear an alto or C Melody sax but no cornet!
I responded to this on March 18, 2015 on the Bixography Forum and expressed my opinion that the cornetist or trumpeter on the soundtrack of “Morals for Women” is NOT Bix Beiderbecke. My original post follows:
I listened repeatedly to the band number during the half-minute from 21:57 to 22:23 of the film “Morals for Women” and I’m more convinced than ever that the cornet or trumpet player heard here is NOT Bix. He comes in after a quite nice little saxophone solo and displays a clean, ringing tone but his musical ideas are little more than the “hot” commonplaces of an era in which Louis Armstrong, Bix and Red Nichols were the major influences on the instrument. Bix’s known recordings from 1930 are quite the opposite: years of alcohol abuse had coarsened his tone and he’d lost the amazing ring he had on the Trumbauer and His Gang records, but his musical imagination was as fertile and advanced as ever.
Just because Bix wrote a letter (to his mother) saying he was seeking work recording movie soundtracks does not mean he actually got any such jobs. Movie music directors, like the conductors of radio and recording-studio bands, wanted people who could sight-read scores and learn their parts instantly. Bix NEVER had that ability, even when he was at the peak of his powers. The cornet or trumpet in “Morals for Women” is clearly the work of a trained musician with a good ear for the hot style, and if it’s a “name” jazz player rather than a studio guy it’s more likely Red Nichols than Bix.
We’d all love to discover a new Bix solo, particularly one from the frustrating gap between his last known record sessions in September 1930 and his death nearly a year later. But this ain’t it.
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