Best Music Movies of 1929

During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.

Mickey seeks shelter from a storm in a house that turns out to be haunted. The skeletons command him to play the organ; they dance and play along.

This early example of the "backstage" musical genre tells the story of Kitty Darling, a fading burlesque star who tries to save her convent-educated daughter April from following in Mom's footsteps.

At the conclusion of World War I, a French girl is romanced by an American doughboy even though she is promised to a French soldier who was sent to the front.

A black laborer turns preacher after accidentally killing a man.

Capt. James Stewart pursues the bandit "The Kinkajou" over the Mexican border and falls in love with Rita. He suspects, that her brother is the bandit.

Molly and Bee, sweet young 'working girls,' live in a cheap room over a New York grocery store. Molly's idol, wealthy Jack Cromwell, lives in a Long Island mansion but is markedly less happy, since his fiancée Jane won't discourage her other admirers. Fleeing in his car, Jack ends up in an urban block party where he meets you-know-who.

The vaudeville act of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney comes to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. When Eddie meets Queenie, he soon falls in love with her—but she is already being courted by Jock Warriner, a member of New York high society. Queenie eventually recognises that, to Jock, she is nothing more than a toy, and that Eddie is in love with her.

An all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.

Fay Wray plays a beautiful showgirl who falls for a rich Park Avenue guy played by Phillips Holmes. William Powell is a producer in love with Miss Wray, but he won't use his influences to take any advantages.... as usual, he's a perfect gentleman. Pointed Heels was supposed to have been a vehicle for "boop-boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, but by the time the film was released, Kane's role was reduced to a supporting part.

A vaudeville act. Trixie Friganza performs first a story and then a song. For the story, she wears a wide-brimmed had and a matching diaphanous shawl. She tells of a visit to a friend who has a five-year old son. The mother tells Trixie a tale of stepping out on her husband, and to conceal the story from the boy, spells out key words. By the story's end, mom is in for a surprise and Trixie has a moral for us. Then, the hat and shawl come off, a base fiddle comes out, and Trixie sings us a comic song about her first two husbands.

A vaudeville comic and a pretty young dancer aren't having much luck in their separate careers, so they decide to combine their acts. In order to save money on the road, they get married. Soon their act begins to catch on, and they find themselves booked onto Broadway. They also realize that they actually are in love with each other, but just when things are starting to look up, the comic starts to let success go to his head.

Rose Marie, aged five or six, sings three numbers, "Heigh Ho, Everybody, Heigh Ho", "Who Wouldn't Be Jealous of You", and "Don't Be Like That". She's animated throughout, acting as well as singing.

Duke Ellington plays hot jazz in a fictional story that finds him down on his luck; he tries in vain to dissuade his friend, dancer Fredi Washington, from working with heart trouble even though it means work for his band. Sure enough, she collapses on stage...

French General Birabeau has been sent to Morocco to root out and destroy the Riffs, a band of Arab rebels, who threaten the safety of the French outpost in the Moroccan desert. Their dashing, daredevil leader is the mysterious "Red Shadow". Margot Bonvalet, a lovely, sassy French girl, is soon to be married at the fort to Birabeau's right-hand man, Captain Fontaine. Birabeau's son Pierre, in reality the Red Shadow, loves Margot, but pretends to be a milksop to preserve his secret identity. Margot tells Pierre that she secretly yearns to be swept into the arms of some bold, dashing sheik, perhaps even the Red Shadow himself. Pierre, as the Red Shadow, kidnaps Margot and declares his love for her.

A young woman, who wants to be in the Follies, is making ends meet by working at a department store's sheet music department, where she sings the latest hits. She is accompanied on piano by her childhood boyfriend, who is in love with her, despite her single-minded interest in her career. When a vaudeville performer asks her to join him as his new partner, she sees it as an opportunity to make her dream come true. Upon arriving in New York City, our heroine finds out that her new partner is only interested in sleeping with her and makes this a condition of making her a star. Soon, however, she is discovered by a representative of Ziegfeld.

A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.

Dee is a naive chorus girl living in a boarding house full of low-paid actors. Dee and Billy are in love and he helps her to move from chorus girl to star. Things run afoul when jealousy, misunderstandings and sleazy men enter the picture.

Margie, singer on a showboat, decides to try her luck in New York inspite of being in love with the owners grandson. She is successful, but suddenly she hears that the showboat is in deep financial trouble, and she calls all the boats former stars to join in a big show to rescue it.

In this all-black cast short, legendary blues singer Bessie Smith finds her gambler lover Jimmy messin' with a pretty, younger woman; he leaves and she sings the blues, with chorus and dancers.

Ted Howard, a vaudevillian left, stranded in a tank town. A local girl, Mary (Sally O'Neil), proposes to finance a new act with her savings and the team succeeds in a minor way until Ted is discovered by Broadway femme fatale Valeska (Carmel Myers). Not wishing to stand in her partner's way, Mary nobly resigns from the act and instead accepts a minor role in the show. She proves a sensation on opening night, however, and a jealous Valeska demands her ousted. But Ted, who is in love with Mary, reorganizes their old act and they begin a new life together as man and wife.

Joe Lane, radio entertainer and songwriter, learns that the manager of the studio, Arthur Phillips, has made improper advances to his wife, Katherine. Infuriated, Lane engages him in a fight, and the encounter results in Phillips' accidental death. Joe goes to prison for a few years, and when he is released he visits his son, Little Pal, at school and is begged by him to run away together.

It's 1929. The studio gave the cinema its voice gave offered the audiences a chance to see their favorite actors and actresses from the silent screen era to see and for the first time can be heard in a gaudy, grandiose music comedy revue. But also appear actors and actresses from the first 'talkies', stars from Broadway and of course the German shepherd Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay is the host of the more than 70 well-known stars who show various acts.

With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. Can the show be saved?

A young Jewish man works in his father's jewelry business, but he doesn't like it at all--he wants to be an entertainer, something he knows that his father would never approve of. He comes up with a scheme to put on his own show in a theater and show his father that he can be a success, but things don't work out quite as well as he planned.

A simple filmed performance featuring Cantor, done up in his stage minstrel makeup, allegedly at the Ziegfeld Theatre Roof Garden, but actually filmed on a soundstage at the Paramount Astoria studio.

A musical revue featuring children, primarily girls, is presented. The first number has a chorus of girls performing a high kicking dance routine with tambourines, before two soloists, a boy and a girl, take center stage to do a gymnastic dance number. The girls chorus then takes over to perform a synchronized song and tap dance style number. Next, the young female orchestra leader introduces the Gumm Sisters, the three who sing and dance on stage by themselves. The final number has another chorus of dancing girls performing an Arabian-themed number.

Lila Beaumont is an understudy in a Broadway musical. Her boyfriend, George Shelby, arrives in New York hoping to take Lila back home with him to marry.

Nappus sends his grandson north for schooling to shelter him from their community.

The Rounders, an 11-man band, are the act here as they perform three stars in a gimmick that is meant to have them as cowboys who are gathered around after a hard days work to cut loose and sing some songs.

Daisy, a clerk at Woolworth's, loves to sing. She meets Bill, a guard on the subway, at a party and they're both attracted to each other, but each tells the other that they have a different job than they actually do. Bill later finds her handbag on the subway, returns it to her and invites her to dinner. They dine at the swanky Mayfield Club, where owner Lawrence Mayfield is also attracted to Daisy and offers her a job there as a singer. Bill is not happy, although Daisy is. Complications ensue.

Singer Ruth Etting sings two popular tunes of 1929. The whole short is filmed in one take.

Grace starts the film by singing 'That's My Baby.' The five band members do an instrumental, then Grace sings 'Glad Rag Doll.'

Three Broadway chorus girls seek rich husbands.

Moore plays the "dual" role of a French singer in America who was originally an American chorus girl in France to acquire a new persona.

The Gotham Rhythm Boys perform a few of their songs.

Directed by Richard Wallace.

Little Johnny Jones is a jockey who is in love with his all-American sweetheart, Mary Baker, and also his career as the rider of thoroughbred horses. But he almost loses both when he is tricked by a showgirl, Vivian Dale. His story of vindication swings from the racetracks of America to England and the historical National Derby, with plenty of red-white-and-blue bunting waving behind the little patriot.

The Rainbow Man is a 1929 black and white American musical film.

Harry Fox & Beatrice Curtis perform parts of their vaudeville act.

Radio announcer Lloyd Hamilton tries on straw boaters while various performers do things on the mythical station STAR. They include Dorothy Burgess, Donald Kerr, Carlotta King, and Ruth Hiatt.

Marjorie, a song-and-dance girl in the stage show of a palatial movie theater, becomes interested in Al West, a warehouse clerk who has put together an unusual jazz band, and uses her influence to get him a place on one of the programs. Max Mindel, the house manager, has a yen for Marjorie and, discovering that she is in love with Al, gives the band notice and hires harmony singers Barney & Bey as a replacement. Marjorie makes up to both men and soon breaks up the team. Al learns of her scheme, however, and makes her confess to the singers. Barney and Bey make up, and Max gives Al and his band one more chance. Al is a sensation, and Max offers him a contract for $1,000 a week.

Mr. Young introduces the sketch in an appropriately melodramatic fashion, wearing an opera cape and a glowering expression. He recites a bit of doggerel about the current popularity of mystery plays ("full of thrills and sighing moans, slamming doors and ringing phones") and then slinks away. Eerie music, thunder, and sinister lighting set the scene. Vivien enters, frightened, and then John, ditto. They tiptoe about, and exchange ridiculous quips about how terrible it all is. Young staggers in, groaning, and slumps into a chair. Vivien screams, and dashes away. When John bumps into the corpse and excuses himself, the corpse comes to life long enough to say "That's all right" before falling dead again.

A mountie pursues a man wanted for murder.

Early MGM sound short featuring vaudeville acts George Dewey Washington, Johnny Marvin, Rosemarie Sinnott, The Locust Sisters, and Harry Rose.

The Mound City Blue Blowers and Doris Walker perform popular songs of the day.

Harry Fox performs his vaudeville act.

Carlena Diamond plays her harp for this Vitaphone production reel #864.

This Vitaphone short features Red Nichols and His Five Pennies performing songs, including China Boy, Nobody's Sweetheart, Ida Sweet as Apple Cider, and Who Cares?.