Walt Roesner and the Capitolians (1928) User Reviews (3)

Hot Does Not Mean Fast

[boblipton · 6/10 · 15 January 2024]

Nowadays when we think of musical shorts, we tend to think of MTV videos. The older and more seasoned may be aware of the soundies of the 1940s, and before that of the many shorts produced by Warner Brothers' Vitagraph division in Brooklyn. But with the coming of sound in the late 1920s, most of the major studios figured out how to handle the new technology by means of shorts like this one: unsophisticated camerawork -- imposed by a static sound system -- and good music.

Roesner ran a popular west coast band, and he had some good talent in it. Jimmy Dorsey appears here on the saxophone, Jimmy Lytell on the clarinet, and Miff Mole plays the trombone. The band offers "O Sole Mio" and "Angela Mio", and then a short jam session titled "Hottest Man In The Band." There seems to be some confusion about what makes a solo hot, but I award the palm to Lytell.

Pleasant but nothing more.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 19 April 2017]

"Walt Roesner and the Capitolians" is a fair sound short from MGM, though it is in far grainier condition than normal. The band play a variety of songs and were at their best when there was no soloist and the just played jazz with no soloist. Before and after that, however, you need to suffer though a few songs such as their rendition of "O Solo Mio"...which might be if okay if you like that operatic style (which I don't). Apart from it being a relatively early Vitaphone sound film, there's not much to distinguish it apart from seeing that one of the band members is Jimmy Dorsey on the sax as well as a super-bizarre but interesting violin solos you simply need to see to believe.

By the way, perhaps I am wrong, but it would appear that some of the band members are wearing makeup and even eyeliner in a few cases.

A swingin good old time in the old town...

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 13 October 2015]

Close to 90 years old, this musical short from the early days of talking films is quite a history lesson. In just 11 minutes, the audience is treated to what the music makers were makin' in the late 1920's. Just imagine your great grandparents or even your great great parents dancing all night long to this hot music, and you don't look at them as either old or probably dead. They knew how to have a good time, and right before the depression came in, they were living it up through something called prohibition. This music was as hot as the moonshine was hard. You can instantly recognize "O solo mio" which later became an Elvis standard, 'It's Now or Never" which generations later is still being.

This will appeal greatly to the music students of today and shows how previous generations lived, and how the music of the 1920 with its big bands and jazzy sound has had am effect on today's sounds are a true follow up to the 1950's rock and roll which was a follow up to what you hear here. So what music has become ever since then owes a lot to the greats of the past. So you certainly can't call this music long hair, and while it's early maybe old, it definitely ain't old fashioned.