Words & Music (1931)

Ruth Etting was a great Broadway singer whose occasional assaults on Hollywood never quite panned out. She could deliver a song beautifully, but it seemed to end there.

In this Vitaphone short, Miss Etting stretches her acting chops by playing a Broadway singer named Ruth Etting. She sings a couple of decent but unmemorable songs and helps out a kid songwriter looking for a break while her piano player tries to steal his song.

Of more interest is the Broadway talent that trooped out to the old Vitaphone studios in Brooklyn to be in this. Bernard Gorcey, father of Leo plays a waiter and Ray Collins ekes out his brief foray into the flicks with a tiny role here. He would retreat to the stage the following year and not be seen in films again until CITIZEN KANE.