Swing High

Helen Twelvetrees is a trapeze artist in the circus about 1880. She is in love with handsome singer Fred Scott. However new ringmaster Bryant Washburn has talked owner George Fawcett into hiring Dorothy Burgess... and the two of them, unknown to the honest and kindly Fawcett, are about to practice every deceit and swindle that the traveling midway was notorious for in the 19th Century.

Joseph Santley directs this circus musical with an eye and ear for the big screen, with many well-known movie comics of the era crowding the screen for a few moments each. Some have not aged well - Stepin Fetchit has a sizable part - but don't blink lest you miss Chester Conklin or Ben Turpin. Other former Sennett regulars include Daphne Pollard and 'Little Billy' Rhodes.

Fred Scott may be remembered as a singing cowboy, but he was a resident baritone at the San Francisco Opera. After he retired to a different career, he told an interviewer he had a deal with horses: he didn't get on their backs and they didn't sell real estate. He hung up his cinematic spurs in 1942, and lived until 1991 and the age of 89.