Barber Shop Blues (1933) User Reviews (7)

It has the Nicholas Brothers....'nuff said!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 9 December 2016]

The Nicholas Brothers were likely the best dancing team in history. Even Fred Astaire praised them for their insanely athletic and incredible dancing in "Stormy Weather", saying "this dance number was the greatest movie musical sequence I had ever seen". Because of their tremendous talent, I try to see them whenever I can...and that's more than enough reason to see "Barber Shop Blues"...even if they aren't in the film very long.

The plot is simple. It begins in a humble barber shop and when the owner wins the lottery, he turns the place into a giant barbershop night club instead of on hookers and liquor (misplaced priorities if you ask me). What follows are the Nicholas Brother dancing and the Claude Hopkins Orchestra playing a VERY lively jazz song. All in all, a lot of fun!

Why Lottery Winners Wind Up Broke

[boblipton · 7/10 · 4 January 2020]

A barber wins a sweepstake and uses the money to remodel his spacious shop, hire a band and dancers to entertain his customers in this fine Vitaphone short.

It's an all-Black cast of skilled entertainers, and the bizarre set-up was a common one in the era: not the barbershop and sweepstakes, but any old reason to put on a show. The audience is treated to a good, hot orchestra led by Claude Hopkins, some fine dancing by the Four Step Brothers, and well executed, popular songs, including "Trees" and "Nagasaki."

I am somewhat familiar with the music of the era, and I didn't recognize a single performer. It just shows the enormous amount of talent and ability that was available to the movies in the 1930s.

All black cast makes for an entertaining interlude

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 25 March 2016]

An all black cast turns a barber shop set into a night club with lively musical renditions from the Claude Hopkins orchestra. This was a nice little surprise shoehorned in between full length films on the Turner Classic Movie channel the other day. It followed "The Story of Temple Drake", which probably explains why that film is mentioned in the "People Who Liked This Also Liked..." section of this movie's page on IMDb, otherwise there's no other reasonable explanation for it.

Orlando Roberson was the featured singer here with a quite melodious voice, and for my money I'd go for The Four Step Brothers any time. Watching them perform individually you have to wonder how they stayed on their feet with those high energy tap routines, while their synchronized swing was exceptionally well choreographed.

I wouldn't know how one would catch a wonderful film short like this other than the way I did, quite by accident actually since I'm sometimes prone to switching off after viewing a completed movie. Something like this isn't mentioned in the cable listings so you just have to be lucky I guess. This time I was.

Claude Hopkins is Great!

[msladysoul · 29 July 2002]

I've been collecting black film shorts for years, and this is one of my favorites. This film shorts stars Claude Hopkins and his Orchestra with Orlando Roberson, and the Four Step Brothers. Great Entertainment, If you can find it, you'll love it. Film Shorts were the only way Black Entertainment could be shown with class, showing fashions, the slang, the dances, the songs, showing the top groups. You'll treasure these when you find it.

Elaborate Astoria Short

[jbacks3 · 10/10 · 8 July 2005]

You've got to hand it to Warner Brothers. Try to think of another studio that would routinely produce all-black shorts during the Depression. This kind of product was routinely banned from many southern theaters which couldn't help the studio's lousy bottom line (1934 was the 4th year WB was bleeding red ink with a loss of over $2.5 million for the year and a staggering $30.0+ million loss since 1931). Still, the studio kept it's Astoria, NY Vitaphone studios busy cranking out musical shorts--- mostly directed by reliable Joe Henaberry. Barber Shop Blues is notable for the incredibly elaborate set design and Claude Hopkins' Orchestra. Songs include an abbreviated version of "I Want a Shave (and a Haircut Too)" and a rendition of Joyce Kilmer's "Trees," which to my tin ear sounds a lot like the Ink Spots. Then there's the near obligatory tap sequence with the Four Step Brothers. Oddly the short is all-male. The real star is the large barber shop set, which belies the minuscule budget and probable 2-day shooting schedule. If you want to see a fantastic example of Henaberry's directorial work, see Public Jitterbug No. 1 (1939) featuring an incredibly frenetic Betty Hutton.

Excellent showcase of lesser-known but huge talent

[morrisonhimself · 10/10 · 5 December 2016]

As in so many of these musical shorts, there really is no story, but only an outline of a silly premise. And I am truly grateful there were such exercises in demonstrating some truly great black performers who didn't have much chance otherwise to show how truly great they were.

Perhaps there is some irony in that the director of so many of these wonderful and in my opinion under-appreciated and too-little-known musical shorts of black performers was Joseph Henabery, who had portrayed Abraham Lincoln in the iconic "The Birth of a Nation."

His Lincoln was not so static as some earlier and later portrayals. He gave his character the nobility and humanity modern history tries to tell us was Lincoln.

Henabery directed 205 movies, according to his listing here at IMDb, mostly this type of musical short, and many of them with black performers.

Here in "Barber Shop Blues," most of the incredibly talented people are pretty well unknown today, except for the astonishing Nicholas Brothers, but that is shame on us, not on them.

Claude Hopkins is the orchestra leader of some remarkable musicians, all of whom deserve fame.

Orlando Roberson, the singer, has one of the sweetest voices I've ever heard. He was clear and lucid, with articulation and clarity so sadly lacking in so many singers and alleged singers of today. According to his IMDb listing, he made only two film appearances. What a loss to us.

What is perhaps even sadder, today these delightful music shorts are used generally just as filler, as padding, to stretch out a schedule.

Turner Classic Movies, though, gave us several hours of them on 5 December 2016, and even if Thanksgiving Day is past, we can certainly be thankful for this presentation.

Do, please, try to catch "Barber Shop Blues" and do, please, try to watch more of these Henabery-directed musical shorts.

Nice Vitaphone Short with All-Black Cast

[Michael_Elliott · 29 August 2011]

Barber Shop Blues (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Nice short from Vitaphone/Warner is best remembered today due it featuring an all-black cast. Thankfully, Warner did turn out quite a few shorts aimed at black audiences and this here is a good example of that. Orlando Roberson does the tune "Trees" and we also get Claude Hopkins & Orchestra doing a few numbers including a very memorable version of "Careless Love." In between the musical acts we get The Four Step Brothers doing a nice little tap number and this here is clearly the highlight of the picture. At just 9-minutes, this is a very good and entertaining short that perfectly shows off what these acts could do if given a shot. I think most people are going to notice the low-budget nature of the film and while many might be impressed with the sets, I thought for the most part they were pretty standard and they certainly didn't look like the same level that we had seen from other Vitaphone pictures. The musical numbers are all fairly impressive even if none of them really jump out at you. I think fans of the music from this era are the ones who are really going to eat this up but overall the short is certainly worth viewing.