Swing Cat's Jamboree (1938) Poster

(1938)

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7/10
Quite enjoyable and occasionally frenetic!
planktonrules27 August 2011
This is a short from Vitaphone and it can be found on the "Warner Brothers Big Band, Jazz & Swing" DVD collection. This set consists of six DVDs and almost 11 hours of shorts! If you don't know who Louis Prima was, you have probably heard him sing before. In Disney's "The Jungle Book" he played King Louis and showed off his singing talents in "I Want To Be Like You". And, if you've seen the film "Big Night", Prima is the big guest that Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub are working so hard to impress--and you never actually get to see Prima in this film.

Much of the short consists of the band leader, Prima, singing. And like his usual style, it's very fast yet smooth. With "Loch Lomond", it's actually a bit frenetic--and the dancers nearly pass out trying to keep up with the crazy jazz. In addition to Prima singing, you've got two of the strangest dancers I've ever seen. This is NOT meant as an insult--it's just that the man and woman have a crazy good style that surprised me. You just have to see it to know what I mean. Overall, quite simple in style but very enjoyable.
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6/10
Obviously 'Dated' ; But, So What?
redryan643 June 2012
Warning: Spoilers
WE CANNOT THANK the folks over at Turner Classic Movies enough; for their great public service in telecasting all of those old one and two reel short subjects. The various running times of the movies make it an impossible task to keep a channel, such as this one on a strict starting time schedule.

THE ANSWER TO this problem is having 'in-betweener' programming; that will even out the time tables out and filling in the odd time. Previews, interviews and related announcements are responsible for a lion's share of the job; with the remainder of it being occupied by short subjects.

WHILE THE GENERAL PUBLIC is well aware of many silents (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Snub Pollard and the Keystone,; as well as the sound two-reelers, featuring the likes of Lautrel & Hardy, Our Gang and the Three Stooges; there are volumes of titles that seldom, if ever see the light of day. Due to the needs of TCM, the viewers are being re-introduced to series such as Pete Smith Specialities, Robert Benchley, Joe McDoakes; as well as Treaveloguies and Sports specialties.

THE ONE SHOT musical specialty reel is another category of which there are hundreds of prime examples available. One such short is today's featured film, SWING CAT'S JAMBORREE (Warner Bros./Vitaphone, 1938.

WITH THE VARIOUS recordings being familiar to the public in their time, the musical short gives face and personality to their voices. With this addition of the visual dimension (in this pre-television age)proved to be and advertiser's dream. Afterall, the shorts gave a boost to the record sales; while, the opposite effect was true, rendering the films of particular singers and bands much more desirable for film bookings.

SWING CAT'S JAMBOREE gives us only 9 minutes of the music of Louis Prima and his orchestra. Mr. Prima is probably not very well known today, probably best known as being the vice of King Louie in Walt Disney's THE JUNGLE BOOK (); that being released some 50 years ago! But there is a lot more of a career to learn about and this little movie is a good place to start.

TO SAY THAT this is dated is an obvious truism; for, it is by its very nature bound to be so. In the same way as a Bob Hope monologue dates very quickly, so does this, which is designed to be a sort of celluloid newspaper feature section.

BEYOND THE OBVIOUS musical theme, this sort of short is designed to be a sort of Historical record of the particular and peculiar customs and habits of a particular period. As a sort of motion picture 'snap-shot', it succeeds most admirably.
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7/10
Swinging Ape
boblipton5 August 2021
Louis Prima plays some numbers with his usual small combo.

Most people my age who know Prima at all know him for providing the voice of King Louie in Disney's animated THE JUNGLE BOOK. Earlier, he had had success in a number of musical genres, from Dixieland, as here, through Big Band, through early Rock & Roll with his third wife, Keely Smith. Expensive tastes and losses at horse racing kept him from enjoying his success -- although you may argue that clothes and racetracks were how he enjoyed himself.
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6/10
Primo swing or maybe Prima
bkoganbing8 August 2018
Louis Prima and his jazz quintet behind him offer a musical selection in this short subject. Prima whose style is as identifiable as that other musician named Louis gives us a few popular selections. We hear Way Down Yonder In New Orleans and then from singer Shirley Lloyd I Can't Give You Anything But Love. Lloyd bears no small reesemblance to the woman Prima later married, Keely Smith.

Some fine swing dancing from Ted Gary and Mitzi Dahl is next on the menu and then a swinging version of Loch Lomond. It was popular back then to swing a lot of public domain items. No ASCAP royalties to be paid.

Prima's work is as infectious as it comes even the young of today will enjoy him.
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Nice Music from Prima
Michael_Elliott4 December 2009
Swing Cat's Jamboree (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Louis Prima, one of the all time greats, gets the lead in this Warner Vitaphone short. We see Louis and his band performing a number of songs including "You're An Education In Yourself", "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and "Loch Lomand". All three songs have Prima performing at the top of his game and turning in fine numbers of these songs (which would go through changes themselves over the years). The highlight for me would be "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" as it features Shirley Lloyd doing her thing and really delivering a firehouse performance. All three music numbers don't feature the highest production values but that really doesn't hurt anything here as they visually have a minor charm to them.
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6/10
Louie Prima swings it with his Band.
classicsoncall14 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A mere nine minute Vitaphone quickie, this short features Louie Prima and his jazz quintet, offering up a host of tunes and backing singer Shirley Lloyd in one instance and a swinging dance couple in another. What surprised me about Prima himself was his voice; it was rather high pitched and sounded as if he was singing falsetto. I don't know if that was his natural voice or an effect for this film, but it sounded unusual to me. Rounding out the show, the entire night club audience reacts by hitting the dance floor in the final number, with double exposure cinematography transitioning the dancers into Scottish kilts for an up-tempo version of the popular 'Loch Lamond' number.
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10/10
Music Mania
Ron Oliver17 October 2004
A VITAPHONE VARIETY Short Subject.

A highly energetic bandleader excites the crowd with his SWING CAT'S JAMBOREE.

Tooting on his trumpet, popular musician Louis Prima leads his 5-man combo while presenting three popular tunes. First up, songstress Shirley Lloyd warbles 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love.' Next, Mitzi Dahl and the awesomely limber Ted Gary dance to 'You're An Education In Yourself.' Finally, the whole room starts to jive during Prima's rendition of 'Loch Lomand.'

***************************

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.
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10/10
Musical short with a story -- sort of
morrisonhimself5 December 2016
Director Roy Mack out-did himself with "Swing Cat's Jamboree."

Not only does he get -- surely only as expected -- some wonderful musical performances from the iconic Cab Calloway and other singers and players, but he gives some fascinating silhouette shots and camera angles, meaning this was not just a throw-away time-filling programmer.

So far as I can tell, these musical shorts were generally intended as throw-away time-filling program padding, and apparently generally had minuscule budgets, but in "Swing Cat's Jamboree," Mack used every penny to advantage -- our advantage.

The opening of "Swing Cat's Jamboree" reminded me a bit of a recently presented Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle feature on Turner Classic Movies: The star is wasting time in his mama's kitchen while she is slaving away doing laundry. Fatty, of course, just makes a mess, but Cab is heard by a passing church deacon who, in my opinion strangely, has a wife who reads tea leaves.

He invites Cab down to his wife's place and she forecasts, among other things, that he will indeed have an orchestra. Which he does in a dream-like cutaway -- really just an excuse to present a musical number, for which I am and you should be grateful -- and then Mack cuts back to Cab, the deacon, and the tea-leaf reader as she offers another prediction.

Still, it's a story and a more reasonable premise than most of the other musical shorts I've seen.

Frankly, I had never before admired and liked Cab Calloway as much as I obviously should have. In this short, he sings and displays his personality and his ability so even I now understand just why he is an icon, a real classic character of the Big Band era.

He deserves every drop of adulation we can give him.

"Swing Cat's Jamboree" is an excellent musical short, and I do hope you get to sit and watch and listen.
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8/10
Pre-Monkey Era
mrdonleone27 January 2020
Do you remember the good old Louis Prima?? He'd be playing the voice of that monkey King Louis (puns intended no doubt) some 30 years later like. Well, here we see him dance and sing and play music. All very nice. Other young people follow suit. Very nice in total, a good training exercise for his monkey activities later on as a cartoon.
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