It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Sweetie (1929) – Musical #821

Studio:
Paramount Pictures

Director:
Frank Tuttle

Starring:
Nancy Carroll, Helen Kane, Jack Oakie, Stanley Smith, William Austin, Stuart Erwin, Joseph Depew, Wallace MacDonald
Specialty performers: The King’s Men

Plot:
Biff Bentley (Smith) is the star football player at Pelham University in North Carolina. He’s engaged to chorus girl Barbara Pell (Carroll), and Biff is planning to elope with Barbara. But at the last minute, when Barbara arrives, Biff decides to stay at school to help the team. Shortly after, Barbara learns that she has inherited Pelham University. Still smarting from her heartbreak, she decides to take this opportunity to get back at Biff and the football team.

Trivia:
• This is a remake of THE CHARM SCHOOL (1921) starring Wallace Reid and Lila Lee. It was then remade as COLLEGIATE (1935) starring Joe Penner, Jack Oakie and Frances Langford.
• The story and screenplay were written by Lloyd Corrigan, who also acted in films.

Stanley Smith and Nancy Carroll

Highlights:
• The 1920s fashions

Notable Songs:
• “My Smarter Than Smart” performed the King’s Men
• “Bear Down, Pelham” performed by the football players and The King’s Men
• “Prep Step” performed by Jack Oakie

Jack Oakie and Helen Kane

My review:
You know the scene in “Singin’ in the Rain” as they are trying to get the microphone just right to pick up sound? The microphone is put in a bush or sewn in a dress, but it’s never close enough to pick up every word.

While this may seem like a comedic exaggeration in the early sound films, it’s what I believe I experienced in this week’s Musical Monday, SWEETIE (1929).

Visually, the print I watched was great. But sound wise, it was hit or miss. In the same scene, I could hear one actor clear as a bell, while I couldn’t quite hear what everyone else in the scene was saying.

SWEETIE (1929) is a collegiate musical. In the film, Biff Bentley (Smith) is the star football player at Pelham University in North Carolina. He’s engaged to chorus girl Barbara Pell (Carroll), and Biff is planning to elope with Barbara. But at the last minute, when Barbara arrives, Biff decides to stay at school to help the team. Shortly after, Barbara learns that she has inherited Pelham University. Still smarting from her heartbreak, she decides to take this opportunity to get back at Biff and the football team.

Since the dawn of sound, collegiate themed films and musicals were en vogue, with increasing popularity into the 1930s from SO THIS IS COLLEGE (1929), GOOD NEWS (1930) to COLLEGE HUMOR (1933).

Our leads of Stanley Smith and Nancy Carroll are truly non-descript. The standout characters are played by the supporting cast, who went on to be more famous than the stars, Stuart Erwin and Jack Oakie–I loved seeing both of these actors early in their career. I was looking forward to seeing Helen Kane in this film, a quintessential flapper who inspired the character of Betty Boop. However, in just her second film, it was difficult to understand Kane’s unique voice due to the sound quality issues SWEETIE (1929) seemed to experience.

While the speaking roles were not-well micc-ed, the singing and dancing numbers in this early sound musical were staged better than other musical of 1929. The singing voices, particularly the harmony of The King’s Men, are heard clearly and sound great.

There is one dance number where you only see a close up of the dancers’ feet, and that was a highlight. There is also a number performed at a dance called “Mammy Alma.” That dance was fun and staged great. However, this song is performed again in the fashion of Al Jolson with black face masks, which wasn’t great.

I really wanted to love this movie, because I love a collegiate musical filled with football, dances and song. But something about SWEETIE felt so long, even though it was only 92 minutes.

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