Underplayed Gems

Variety Time (1948)

Variety Time poster
Directed by
Hal Yates
Genre
comedy, music
Country
United States
Runtime
59 min
Rating
10.0 of 10 from 1 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A compilation of musical numbers and comedy clips from older RKO films. A host introduces the acts and tells jokes between the featured performances.

lightheartedplayfulnostalgicbreezyupbeatvariety-showfuncomedic

What happens

Variety Time is a 1948 American variety film directed by Hal Yates. The film is a compilation of musical numbers from various RKO features and comedy footage from RKO short subjects. Future Tonight Show host Jack Paar appears as master of ceremonies, offering comic monologues, introducing the assorted clips, and playing straight man for Hans Conried in a dialect-comedy sketch. The previously filmed sequences include comedy stars Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy, a Flicker Flashbacks silent-movie revival, and musical numbers with dance act Jesse and James (in an out-take from the 1944 musical Show Business); Lynn, Royce and Vanya in a specialty from Seven Days Leave, Frankie Carle and his orchestra in a clip from Riverboat Rhythm, and Miguelito Valdes in a scene from Pan-Americana. The film was inexpensively produced (only $51,000 for the entire feature) and showed a profit of $132,000, prompting RKO to compile three more "clip shows," Make Mine Laughs (1949), Footlight Varieties (1951), and Merry Mirthquakes (1953). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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