Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs (1928) User Reviews

Which makes the BEST ventriloquist's dummy--your wife or sister?

[tadpole-596-918256 · 5/10 · 20 May 2013]

Apparently, everyone who may have known whether Dick and Cheri Rich were husband and wife, OR brother and sister, is LONG GONE now, as Ernie Harwell used to say (both this site and Wikipedia give the pair a virtual blank slate). They were featured in two Warners Brothers Vitaphone shorts in 1928: DICK RICH AND HIS MELODIOUS MONARCHS (which I have seen, and am reviewing here) and DICK RICH AND HIS SYNCO-SYMPHONISTS (which I have NOT seen). Given how the eight bandsmen making up the "Melodious Monarchs" were nothing to write home about, one must wonder whether they were fired and replaced by the "Synco-Symphonists," or simply renamed in an attempt to bamboozle the paying public. About 5 minutes and 20 seconds into the 9 minute, 38.27-second "Melodious Monarchs" short, band leader Dick takes sister\wife Cheri onto his lap, pretending that she is his VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMY (though he clearly has NO ventriloquist skills himself), and spouts a string of nonsense syllables in the middle of the ditty "There Must Be a Silver Lining." As if that just doesn't take the cake!

Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs was another Vitaphone short I can't recommend

[tavm · 3/10 · 30 November 2012]

This is another Vitaphone musical short on The Jazz Singer DVD. It starred the title band and also featured Dick's wife Cheri. For a while, the singing and playing music was fine and when Cheri appeared and sang, she seemed in fine form and it was a little amusing when her husband did some faces during her number. But then they did a ventriloquist act in which she mouthed her hubby's lines that got lame real fast and then Dick went a bit too loud in both his speaking and music that threatened to bring things downhill real quick. Since ten lines is required for this review to be submitted, well, I really can't think of anything else except I can't recommend Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs.

A bit hard on the ears

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 23 January 2010]

An early Vitaphone film, this Warner Brothers short apparently was one created using a very complicated system through which an accompanying record was synchronized with a movie camera. There were several serious setbacks for such a system (such as if a film skipped--it became out of sync for the rest of the film plus the records quickly wore out--and 20 showings was the normal life-span of the records) and even though it produced excellent sound, it was eventually replaced. The last of the Vitaphone films were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.

In general, the sound quality of the Vitaphone shorts was excellent and this is one of the only ones I've seen that wasn't. The sound was rather thin. To make things worse, Dick Rich and his female accompaniment were amazingly bad. No, that's too charitable--they sounded annoying. Neither of them could sing well at all, though the band itself sounded fine. Truly this is one of the least talented group to be featured on a Vitaphone film. Despite its historical value as a very early sound film, it's one you might just want to skip.