VENTRILOQUIST - William & Edna Frawley (1927)

[Paul E. Gierucki]

Here is an extraordinarily rare De Forest Phonofilm short featuring William Frawley and his (former) wife, Edna. While the film suffers from nitrate decomposition, it is a fun example of the duo's vaudeville work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc98ZvcbJQM

[Rift Corbitt]

sweet lord he looks young.

[Ed Watz]

Thank you for sharing Paul, this is a great example of twenties vaudeville, a time capsule accurately capturing the experience. Moreover, it’s also very entertaining. Edna Frawley is terrific, and their timing together is simply perfection. I knew that William Frawley appears briefly as a cop in a 1925 Charley Chase short, but to have him in sound at this early date is even more interesting - what a charmed career he had - vaudeville, character actor in films, appearing with Chaplin in VERDOUX, and a dozen years past retirement age as a popular television star.

I was also intrigued by that street scene backdrop so typical of what we’d expect from a vaudeville house:

I had to think of the similar backdrop we see in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA:

I believe it was CBS Sunday Morning that showed archivists preserving the old Hollywood and theatrical backdrop canvasses. It’d be nice if they have an old city street scene in their stored inventory - for that time when vaudeville "comes back” ;-)