Vaudeville Days

I watched this two reel short on TCM hoping to learn a bit about Vaudeville and enjoy some good acts, but was sorely disappointed.

The info provided by the narrator is very brief, and although there's a couple of interesting tidbits if you know nothing about Vaudeville, there's not nearly enough information to make this short educational or interesting.

The impersonators who recreated classic acts from the early decades of Vaudeville (imitating Vesta Victoria, Andrew Mack, Eva Tanguay and Pat Rooney Sr.) were bland, forgettable and certainly lacked the qualities that made those acts very popular in their day. As for the contemporary performers, I really enjoyed the two man song and dance team Rio Brothers, but the mimes and acrobats were quite forgettable. And I found comedian Eddie Garr painfully unfunny, which I hate to say because his daughter Teri Garr ("Young Frankenstein", "Mr. Mom") was one of my favorite actresses when I was growing up.

Oddly, the short wraps up with a large theatrical musical comedy production with a tropical island theme which I'm sure is archive footage from something else. And it's not very funny or musically pleasing, is not typical Vaudeville, and seems completely out of place in this short.

I've seen some entertaining Vaudeville acts watching old shorts on TCM, but unfortunately this short is completely lacking. Ironically, this short was probably intended to raise interest in Vaudeville, but the lack of quality will produce the opposite effect.

Skip it.