When East Meets West (1928) User Reviews

Better than most; worse than some

[tadpole-596-918256 · 7/10 · 19 May 2013]

Maybe I am the only person still alive who prefers THE POLICE QUARTET above all other Vitaphone music shorts from the late 1920s. Hearing four guys blend four tunes with four sets of lyrics into one smooth round goes way beyond what we did with "Row Row Row Your Boat" in fourth grade music class, but maybe that's just me. That being said, in the 8 minute, 43.06-short titled WHEN EAST MEETS WEST (Vitaphone #2236, NOT to be confused with Vitaphone #2239 which came out from the SAME couple at about the SAME time, titled THE COWBOY AND THE GIRL) comic pianist Ray Mayer and his blonde main squeeze Edith Evans warm up the microphone with three songs. Their final selection, "Side by Side," is probably their strongest entry, as well as being perhaps the best known of the tunes today. Does this mean that THE COWBOY AND THE GIRL, which I have NOT seen as of this writing, is now on my must-see list? Though the title of #2239 has a slightly hotter ring to it than that of #2236, I honestly feel I've had my fill of Mayer & Evans for now.

Ray Mayer & Edith Evans are pretty entertaining in the short, When East Meets West

[tavm · 7/10 · 29 November 2012]

This was another Vitaphone musical short I watched on The Jazz Singer DVD. It starred the husband-and-wife duo of Ray Mayer & Edith Evans. He is dressed in a cowboy outfit at the piano and sings the first song-a ditty about a Ford car named Lizzy. His wife then appears to sing while hubby provides accompaniment. It goes back-and-forth like that for awhile before the end. This was another of these vintage early talkie shorts I highly enjoyed. Once again, I need to stretch to 10 lines for this review to be submitted so I'll just say that I'm such a movie and musical buff that I'm willing to see and listen to almost anything at least once. So on that note, I'm now going to view another one...

A wink to the 21st Century

[robcat2075 · 9/10 · 2 December 2007]

I saw this as a DVD extra to the 2007 DVD release of "The Jazz Singer" (Disc 3)

This is one of the better Vitaphone shorts, in no small part due to the comfortable on-camera demeanor of the performers, especially Ray Mayer. The songs are corny, but they seem to know that and acknowledge that to us in future with a wink and a nudge.

Edith Evan's singing is just fine, but Mayer's accompanying piano work and spoken introductions are a subtle parody act in itself. (Watch the gum.) This is a vaudeville act captured on film and I presume a successful one, but I wonder how they ever played this to the back row of a live theater setting. Somehow they must have done it.

Pretty clever for a Vitaphone short

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 22 January 2010]

An early Vitaphone film, this Warner Brothers short apparently was one created using a very complicated system through which an accompanying record was synchronized with a movie camera. There were several serious setbacks for such a system (such as if a film skipped--it became out of sync for the rest of the film plus the records quickly wore out--and 20 showings was the normal life-span of the records) and even though it produced excellent sound, it was eventually replaced. The last of the Vitaphone films were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.

In this short, Ray Mayer both plays the piano and sings. Edith Evans sang to Mayer's accompaniment. Oddly, Mayer is wearing cowboy clothes with very hairy-looking chaps while Ms. Evans is wearing a contemporary dress! The overall effect is odd to say the least! As for the singing, it's all very pleasant--better than most of the other Vitaphone shorts I've seen from this early sound era. In addition, Mayer is pretty witty when introducing the various numbers--and isn't all that surprising that he went on to have a reasonably successful career in films with 42 credits as an actor. By the way, despite different last names, Evans and Mayer were in fact married to each other.