Have you ever heard of Wheeler and Woolsey?

[marcapra]

I have studied 1920s and 30s movies for at least 45 years, yet until recently never heard of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. Wheeler is the younger, baby-faced one and Woolsey is the older one with glasses and cigars. They made tons of movies from 1929 to 1937 for RKO and one for Columbia, and were big enough in the very early 30s to have even made some color movies. Does anyone know if they ever issued any of their songs on records? The only reason I am acquainted with them now is I saw a couple of their movies on TCM. In the 1920s, Wheeler and Woolsey were a vaudeville team doing jokes and song and dance. They were put in the 1929 color film Rio Rita as comic relief and were an instant hit. Their humor is dated, but their songs and dances are a good view into what vaudeville must have been like back then.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c06k-OtsKo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OOeX7iypbQ

[edisonplayer]

Yes,I have several of their movies that I taped off TCM.There's one record they did for Victor called "Wheeler and Woolsey at The World's Fair"I believe that was the title.It was a comic tour of the Chicago World's Fair in 1933.edisonplayer

[estott]

Warner Archive has most of their RKO films available on disc - some very funny viewing.

[victorIIvictor]

Here is their lone Victor 78 on you tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xZcO5eidQ

It's not very good, and I offer this opinion as a big fan of theirs. You would think with Victor and RKO Radio Pictures both being Subdivisions of RCA, some of their musical numbers would've been recorded on commercial discs, but alas, no.

The Vitaphone Project, as a fund-raising measure, offers a two-CDR set that claims to include "virtually every one of the songs from their 1929-37 features," but they are using the term "virtually" extremely loosely here--many of my favorites are missing. If you are really interested, I will dig out my copy and refresh my memory as to what is on it.

http://www.vitaphoneproject.com/

Yes, it is pricey, but it certainly goes to a good cause!

I'm awfully fond of this routine from "The Stolen J00LS," @ 8:45


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTixNeJwudg


Best wishes, Mark



Best wishes, Mark

[marcapra]

It's odd that they didn't do one of their songs on a record, but it would be missing something without the dancing that goes with it. This record is obviously a commercial plug to get people to attend the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, called the Century of Progress. I'm guessing it was played a lot on the radio in 1933. I guess back in the early 30s, they didn't mix formats too much. If you were in pictures, you didn't have time to do records, and records weren't selling well then anyway. That was the golden era of radio. Although I do have some mid-30s records by Fred Astaire on a picture label Brunswick singing songs from his movies.

[edisonplayer]

Bert Wheeler makes me think of Barney Rubble in "The Flintstones".My mom used to say,"They are so corny!"edisonplayer

[Curt A]

Isn't the guy on the right George Burns? If not, he is a doppelganger...

[victorIIvictor]

George Burns "lifted" that look from Robert Woolsey and/or Walter Catlett when Burns was in his 80s, about 50 years (!) after Woolsey had passed away. Around the time that the above picture of Wheeler and Woolsey was taken, George Burns neither wore glasses nor parted his hair in the middle. For example, see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPhmNhO7dRw

which is a classic Burns & Allen routine.

I wonder who the woman in the picture is? It doesn't look like any of Wheeler's regular leading ladies (Dorothy Lee, Betty Grable, Marjorie White, Raquel Torres, Barbara Pepper, Marjorie Lord… Who am I forgetting?)

Best wishes, Mark

[Curt A]

Interesting clip, I guess I never saw George Burns - only heard him on the radio - until he was much older. The "Pep Boys" liked that look too...

[Henry]

Manny gave up the cigar some years ago. The statue of the Boys that adorns the older Pep Boys stores was modified accordingly (a "cigarerectomy" was performed!).