Ben Pollack & His Orchestra (1934) User Reviews

Simle and unadorned

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 24 August 2011]

I am currently sitting here watching a DVD collection of Vitaphone musical shorts. Of all the ones I've seen so far, this is one of the simplest and least adorned. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as most of the shorts feature crazy sets and costumes--sometimes they were great, sometimes they were just bizarre. You get none of this with "Ben Pollack & His Orchestra"--none. Instead, it's just the orchestra playing and a singer singing and some nice dancing reminiscent of Astaire & Rogers--nothing super-exciting but also nothing offensive. I guess it's nice to have one that is just singing and dancing and not distracted by sets, silly costumes and the like.

More than a nine minute filler-up.

[Peter22060 · 10/10 · 4 February 2003]

This Warner Bros short is marvelously preserved. It is something to see band music from the early thirties with vocalists of the period. From a historic perspective, I enjoyed seeing a real staging performed instead of a recreation as part of a larger movie like the Glenn Miller Story.

Short film featuring Ben Pollack's band and Doris Robbins

[ukmikie · 10/10 · 18 February 2015]

Thoroughly enjoyed watching this, not because of what it is, but because of who is in it. Doris Robbins was my grandmother, Ben Pollack her second husband (my step-grandfather). Not sure when they married, so don't know if they were married when this was made. This is, undoubtedly, the reason for the "flirty" nature of their interaction! I originally found a reference to this short while researching Grandpa Benny online, I hadn't even known of its existence prior to that - only knew that he played himself in The Glen Miller Story. It was particularly nice to watch as I only have a few of my grandmother's 78's which aren't very well preserved, so the sound quality is poor. It was nice to actually hear her sing.

Fair Vitaphone Short

[Michael_Elliott · 1 May 2011]

Ben Pollack & His Orchestra (1934)

** (out of 4)

Warner and Vitaphone probably made a killing by inviting musical talent to their New York City studio where they'd put them on film and then release them to hundreds of theaters. This practice by the studio lasted nearly fifty-years and this one here features Ben Pollack. 'L'Amour, Tourjours, L'Amour', 'Got the Jitters', 'Beat o' My Heart' and 'Mini' are the four songs featured here and for the most part I was impressed with Pollack and his band but I thought the film went way overboard on the romantics. Doris Robbins joins the band on both 'Got the Jitters' and 'Beat o' My Heart' and does a very good job with the singing but sadly the director, for some reason, decided to add some "flash" to the picture. This includes during 'Heart' him putting Robbins face inside a heart and then putting up music notes in the back. The final duet as the two acting all flirty towards one another and to put it mildly they didn't come off very believable at all. I was a little surprised to see some "story" in this short as most of these early films in the series were straight music. I don't mind them trying something different but it really didn't add anything to the film. The four songs make this worth sitting through though.