King of Jazz (1930)

Directed by

John Murray Anderson, Paul Fejos

Genre

musical film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 38m

Rated

15

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 39 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This 1930 musical revue showcases Paul Whiteman and his orchestra performing various songs and skits. The film also features the Rhythm Boys singing on camera and Bing Crosby providing off-camera vocals.

energeticupbeatnostalgicvisually brighttheatricalcheerfulfast-paced

What happens

King of Jazz is a 1930 American pre-Code color musical film starring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. In the 1920s Whiteman signed and featured jazz musicians including Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang (both are seen and heard in the film), Bix Beiderbecke (who had left before filming began), Frank Trumbauer, and others. King of Jazz was filmed in the early two-color Technicolor process and was produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal Pictures. The film featured several songs sung on camera by the Rhythm Boys (Bing Crosby, Al Rinker and Harry Barris), as well as off-camera solo vocals by Crosby during the opening credits and, very briefly, during a cartoon sequence. King of Jazz still survives in a near-complete color print and is not a lost film, unlike many contemporary musicals that now exist only either in incomplete form or as black-and-white reduction copies. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". As a published work from 1930 with a valid copyright renewal, the film entered the American public domain on January 1, 2026. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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