An early Vitaphone film, this Warner Brothers short apparently was one created using a very complicated system through which an accompanying record was synchronized with a movie camera. There were several serious setbacks for such a system (such as if a film skipped--it became out of sync for the rest of the film plus the records quickly wore out--and 20 showings was the normal life-span of the records) and even though it produced excellent sound, it was eventually replaced. The last of the Vitaphone films were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.
In this short, Ray Mayer both plays the piano and sings. Edith Evans sang to Mayer's accompaniment. Oddly, Mayer is wearing cowboy clothes with very hairy-looking chaps while Ms. Evans is wearing a contemporary dress! The overall effect is odd to say the least! As for the singing, it's all very pleasant--better than most of the other Vitaphone shorts I've seen from this early sound era. In addition, Mayer is pretty witty when introducing the various numbers--and isn't all that surprising that he went on to have a reasonably successful career in films with 42 credits as an actor. By the way, despite different last names, Evans and Mayer were in fact married to each other.
