The Show of Shows *** (1929, John Barrymore, Richard Barthelmess, Noah Beery Sr, Loretta Young, Dolores Costello, Myrna Loy, Chester Conklin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr) – Classic Movie Review 13,633

Warner Bros’ 1929 American all-talking sound pre-Code musical revue film The Show of Shows is directed by John G Adolfi, shot almost entirely in Technicolor, and features most of the studio’s stars.

Warner Bros’ fifth colour film, the 1929 all-talking Vitaphone production The Show of Shows was shot almost entirely in Technicolor, cost a high $795,000, but still took more than twice that at the box office ($1,624,000).

Frank Fay comperes the early sound revue-style musical film Show of Shows in black and white and two-strip Technicolor, demonstrating the roster of Warner Bros talent in 1929, which is marred by the necessarily unimaginative camera-work and the stage-bound nature of the acts.

It features most of the Warner Bros film stars, including John Barrymore, Richard Barthelmess, Noah Beery Sr, Loretta Young, Dolores Costello, Bull Montana, Myrna Loy, Chester Conklin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Tully Marshall, Nick Lucas, and Betty Compson. Ironically, nearly all the film’s performers would exit from Warners by 1931.

Today’s audiences will need to excuse the virtually static cinematography, which makes even the most charming of performers an effort to watch in a movie clocking in at more than two hours (128 minutes). But it’s still a little treasure trove for vintage showbiz fans.

Look out especially for John Barrymore’s dramatic performance of a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part III, Myrna Loy as an oriental princess being sung to by Lucas in a Chinese Fantasy, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Chester Conklin performing ‘A Bicycle Built for Two”, Georges Carpentier performing ‘If I Could Learn To Love’, and Winnie Lightner ‘Singing in the Bathtub’.

It was intended and advertised as being an all-colour, all-talking movie, but 21 minutes were in black-and-white, 17 minutes of part one and the first four minutes of part two.

The Show of Shows survives in a black-and-white 1958 print from an Associated Artists Productions but some colour segments have been recovered. The US Library of Congress holds a copy of the black-and-white version.

In 2022, an unofficial reconstructed colorised version appeared online.

It is Warner Bros’ fifth colour film following The Desert Song (1929), On with the Show! (1929), Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929) and Paris (1929). Song of the West was completed by June 1929 but its release was delayed till March 1930. 

The cast include:

John Barrymore

Myrna Loy

Frank Fay

H B Warner

Monte Blue

Douglas Fairbanks Jr

Lupino Lane

Ben Turpin

Chester Morris

Beatrice Lillie

Rin-Tin-Tin

Betty Compson

Nick Lucas

Noah Beery Sr

Winnie Lightner

Richard Barthelmess

Alice White

Georges Carpentier

Irene Bordoni

Dolores Costello

Grant Withers

Loretta Young

Ann Sothern

Jack Muhall

Chester Conklin

Ted Lewis

Viola Dana

Alice Day

Marceline Day

Hobart Bosworth

Joe Burke

Louise Fazenda

Ted Lewis

Tully Marshall

Jack Mulhall

Lee Moran

Nick Lucas

Sally O’Neil

Shirley Mason

Lloyd Hamilton

Sally Eilers.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,633

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