Red Nichols and His Five Pennies (1929) User Reviews

Terrific Jazz Short

[Michael_Elliott · 12 September 2011]

Red Nichols and His Five Pennies (1929)

*** (out of 4)

Entertaining, 9-minute short from Vitaphone/Warner has Red Nichols and his "Five Pennies" doing songs including China Boy, Nobody's Sweetheart, Ida Sweet as Apple Cider and Who Cares?. If you're familiar with Nichols and his band then you're going to know that they perform some really fast jazz and the entire strength of their band seems to be that they enjoy starting off slow before just going and going for a feverish, fast pace and this is what they do best. I've seen a number of their shorts and each time they have no troubles impressing me and this here is no exception. The highlight of the film has to be Sweetheart, which also features Eddie Condon singing. Condon does two numbers and both are them are quite good as his voice perfectly mixes with the music. The "directing" isn't all that special as the visuals are quite lazy as the group are just pretty much in one spot and perform their act while the camera stays still and records it. There are a few edits here and there but you can tell that the budget was very low. Fans of this short should also check out 1936's RED NICHOLS & HIS WORLD FAMOUS PENNIES.

A pleasant Dixieland Jazz sort of show.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 January 2010]

A later 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 records with were made in 1930, then the studio switched to the standard sound-on-film system.

In this installment in the series of shorts, band leader Red Nichols and his orchestra perform several musical numbers that sound as if they were inspired by Dixieland Jazz. The music was peppy and strongly emphasized his excellent cornet playing. In addition, for one song Eddie Condon sang. All in all, a very typical and pleasant short from Warner Brothers/Vitaphone.

Lively and entertaining

[Paularoc · 7/10 · 13 March 2013]

After watching several Vitaphone shorts, there's finally a band that I knew. And I don't why I remember this band as they seem to have been in only a couple of movies and made just a handful of television appearances. Maybe it's the catchy band name - Red Nichols and His Five Pennies or maybe it's because of the Danny Kaye film, The Five Pennies. But it may be because I thoroughly enjoy their Dixieland jazz style of music and the energy with which Nichols performed on the coronet. Eddie Condon not only was a musician but the lead singer in this short. He sang well and then pranced back to the band with verve and showmanship. Unlike some of the Vitaphone shorts, this one was not draggy at all but rather was entertaining throughout.