I have to laugh. In a prior review of one of these Vitaphone film shorts, I mentioned how often director Roy Mack reached into the same bag of tricks to come up with a story that turned out to be a dream. A few I've seen right in a row include "Twenty Thousand Cheers for the Chain Gang", "Soft Drinks and Sweet Music" and "Good Morning, Eve". So with this one it seemed like he was about to break the routine, but at the very end, the impetus for the story turned out to be an April Fool's Joke! Maybe I'll run into a 'real' story yet! Oh well, it's not so bad. With his Cross Roads Gas Station (presumably) burned to the ground, owner Walter Webb (Leon Errol) turns over the claim to his insurance company to cover a replacement. The tip off that this wasn't the real deal should have been the thoroughly modern enterprise that sprang up to replace the run down garage and filling station destroyed in the fire. Particularly appealing in this Technicolor romp are the snazzy uniforms of the singing female gas attendants, gloriously decked out in brilliant white shorts and the most gorgeous shade of purple you'll ever lay your eyes on. Seriously, I'm not prone to exaggeration.The story then transitions over to a golf course with an equally colorful canvas, and for any antique auto buffs in the audience, feast your eyes on the vintage vehicles offered for your viewing pleasure. Fortunately, before this one's over, we learn with the arrival of one big spender at the filling station that he's willing to pony up for - get this - a half gallon of gas for nine cents! And I don't think that was an April Fool's joke!

While a variety of color processes were developed before this film came out in 1934, they were either experimental and never really used in commercial films or they were primitive two-color processes. The two-color process made for a color-ish film. Since the color strips were orange-red and green-blue, the color tended to be mostly tones of greens and oranges...and many colors in the spectrum simply looked orange or green (or some shades similar to this). However, "Service With a Smile" is a true color film...using the newly developed Three-Color Technicolor...a color process licensed to only a few studios such as Disney (and no other full color cartoons could me made until this contract expired) as well as Warner Brothers/Vitaphone. While the colors are very intense and a tad garish, it does look color and has purples, yellows and other colors not possible with previous processes employed on commercial films. I think much of the garishness is actually NOT the fault of the film but the color choices--and the guy who developed this color process made the studios agree to employ his ex-wife as a color consultant...and she may well be the reason the colors are so intense.As for the film, Leon Errol stars in it as Walter Webb, a guy who owns a service station. It soon burns down and when Errol is asked by his insurance adjuster to describe his old business, he describes it in insanely lavish terms--and you see a HUGE ultra-modern station filled with gorgeous ladies in beautiful uniforms attending to customers. It's ludicrously fancy and deluxe! The overall effect is silly but also mesmerizing due to the color! This is a very important movie historically. While the studio's first Three-Color film, "La Cucharacha" came out first, this short has the distinction of being the second film using this process from Warner. It's also is more entertaining and looks a bit nicer than "La Cucharacha". Well worth seeing...especially for some of the nutty production numbers...especially the eye-popping one near the end with the ladies in bathing suits dancing about the Walter Webb sign!

Service with a Smile (1934) *** (out of 4) Leon Errol plays a gas station owner who gets a call in the middle of the night saying his piece of junk station has blown up. Knowing he's going to get the insurance money, he decides to make his status out to be something much better than it actually was. Errol tells a story about a neon lights station being ran by chorus girls. SERVICE WITH A SMILE comes from Vitaphone, features a familiar comic and best of all is in glorious 3-strip Technicolor. There's no question about it but the Technicolor is the reason to check out this two-reeler. Those familiar with these early color films know that the quality of the color is usually very high as long as the materials are good and thankfully they're terrific here. Just check out the sequence in the bedroom with Errol gets the news. The color on his pajamas just jumps right off the screen as do the beautiful looking blankets on the bed. The colors of the room just leap right out at you and this is especially true once we get to the fantasy sequence with all the red neon and the girls. The music numbers are also fairly good and a lot of credit goes to the set designer for making everything look so good. Errol gets a few funny lines here but mostly he's just introducing the music numbers and the girls but hey, there's nothing wrong with that!

With Broadway comedian Leon Erroll having found a tidy following in a series of minor Warner Brothers' comedies on the West Coast, Vitaphone used him in several fast filler items like this lavishly produced short.A great experiment in early three strip Technicolor (seldom have the colors lept off the screen in this kind of rich brilliance even in feature films), the only serious weakness in SERVICE WITH A SMILE is the "book" (a little morality tale/joke on the desirability of honesty in dealing with insurance companies). If stage musicals of the twenties and early thirties were *really* this vacuous - as popular imagination and Hollywood "history" would have it - we'd never have remembered any of them.The unexpected strength in the film however (aside from Errol himself - and he doesn't get to shine with his usual bluster and physical comedy) is the delightfully accessible music of Cliff Hess. It's a minor Hollywood tragedy that Hess didn't follow others who found success on the wrong coast back to stage success in the East. He might be better remembered today (or remembered at all). Hess had cut his teeth (and apparently learned a good deal about melody and lyrics) as a musical secretary to Irving Berlin from 1913 to 1918 and even served a term as chorus member in Berlin's Broadway cast of STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN in 1915! Hess's work on SERVICE WITH A SMILE is a consistently tuneful delight, well delivered by a cast that frequently has more enthusiasm than precision - but that seemed a hallmark of twenties and thirties choreography judging from earlier filmed stage musicals from the Marx Brothers' (and Irving Berlin's) COCOANUTS to Burt Lahr's (and Rodgers' and Hart's) HEADS UP!. Well worth a look and listen, but don't expect a lost masterpiece; just a bit of very enjoyable fluff.