I just finished watching the Vitaphone short "Gypsy Sweetheart". Sadly, apart from the early and nice looking full color Technicolor as well as seeing Margaret Dumont in a film without the Marx Brothers, it's a total bore. There really isn't much in the way of plot--just lots and lots of singing and dancing in very colorful and stereotypical Gypsy outfits. The songs aren't even very good and I just wanted the whole thing to end! All in all, an expensive looking but boring film because music and dancing (mediocre at that) alone do not make a film worth seeing. The story is completely undeveloped and if I'd been in the theater back when this played, I would have used it as an excuse to use the restroom or go out to buy popcorn! The only good thing about the film is its message that the Gypsies (Romani) are NOT dishonest folk.
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Michael_Elliott5 November 2011Gypsy Sweetheart (1935)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
2-strip Technicolor short from MGM has a group of rich people having a party when some gypsies are invited to sing and dance. All is going good until they're accused of stealing some money, gold and watches. This is when the beautiful and talented Tina (Wini Shaw) talks about how mistreated and misunderstood her people have been. If you watch Turner Classic Movies enough then you've surely came across countless musical two-reelers that MGM turned out left and right back in the day. This one here is certainly worth watching even if it's no where near the best that the studio had to offer. What makes this film work so well is the beautiful Technicolor and it's obvious that this was the most important thing to the filmmakers. It really does seem as if each frame of film had so much attention paid to it just to make sure that the colors really jump off the screen. Everything from the clothes being worn to the paintings on the wall appear to have been perfectly matched to everything else in the frame. Just take a look at one dance sequence where the gypsy people are lined up and it's not the dance that's impressive but instead the colors and how they blend together. The dances are mildly entertaining but the songs are all rather forgettable. I'd say the story is pretty silly and predictable as well but Shaw was certainly very easy on the eyes. Overall, this is certainly nothing groundbreaking but if you've got twenty-minutes to kill then it's worth watching.