A musical comedy with Sally Blane (who doesn't sing), R. Vallee, Nella Walker (as the matron who's the aunt's rival) and M. Waite (as the impersonated jazz-man), refreshing and good-natured, it has the assets of the classy silent age: the good cinematography, neat and beautiful sets; it is from the 1st wave of its genre, when the movie was eager to offer music, the dawn, the earliest springtime of these comedies. The best tune belongs to the small girlie (Patti Brill, Dorothy Gray …).A lighthearted show, and in fact a show within a show: the charity event, with the dancers and the small orphans and then the jazz-band; it was made by a stylish studio. The players embody the different styles: for the blandness and numbness, R. Vallee (bland and insipid, awkward and silly), for the luridness, Sally Blane (lurid and glamorous, ), for the lightest comedy, Nella Walker (for the humor and relish) and the grotesque comedians (the aunt, the copper …). The quirk is that, despite its lead, the movie doesn't depend on him.The jazzmen's music comes across as mild but dapper, and the lead has a nasal, plugged tone.

Most folks watching "The Vagabond Lover" today would probably dislike it or at best tolerate it. However, given the context for the film, it is a pretty good film. That's because the early talking pictures had horrible sound--just horrible. Much of the action was stuck around hidden microphones--and the films seemed stiff and unnatural. Additionally, the sound quality was just awful in many of the film (the best example "Coquette"--the film that earned Mary Pickford an Oscar). However, "The Vagabond Lover" is less stagy and stiff and the sound quality is marvelous for such an early film. I am sure some of this is due to the restoration of the film by Roan. Regardless, it's a rare DVD because I didn't need captions in order to understand what the folks were saying--which is good, as it came with none.This film is the first full-length film for Rudy Vallee, though he made two shorts (where he and his band just performed in front of a camera) earlier in 1929. Because he was brand-new to film (as well as to music, as he'd only been a nation-wide sensation for about a year), I can cut him some slack here. While he became an excellent supporting actor in such films as "Palm Beach Story" and "Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer", here in "The Vagabond Lover" he really is pretty stiff and bland. But, so were almost ALL singers in 1929! Flat, stilted acting was pretty common in the day and more naturalistic performances were still to come in the 1930s. The same can be said for the dance numbers--pretty crummy when seen today, but for 1929, not bad at all.The story finds Vallee and his band (The Connecticut Yankees) out of work--and no one will hire them. They know they are good but just getting someone to LISTEN to them is the problem. So, they concoct a stupid plan--to break into the home of a famous musician, Ted Grant, and perform for him!! This insanely irrational plan really goes unexpectedly poorly when the neighbor (Marie Dressler) sees them break in and calls the police. One of the band members comes up with an even more insane solution--to tell the cops and the neighbor that Vallee IS Ted Grant. They do believe them but this creates another problem with this goofy society lady (Dressler) insists that they MUST perform at a local benefit. They cannot say no and it's not at all surprising that Grant learns that SOMEONE is using his name! What will come of all this as well as Vallee's budding romance with the dippy society matron's daughter (Sally Blane)? Despite Vallee's stiffness, the weakest part of the film, for me, was actually Dressler. While some of the reviewers really liked her (and some thought she was the best thing in the film), I thought her acting was about as subtle as a stripper at a Baptist picnic! Her later wonderful acting (like she did in "Dinner at Eight") was not apparent. Here she was far, far from subtle and dialing back her goofy performance a bit would have helped. Now I have said a lot about the shortcomings of the film, but there are also some nice things apart from the great sound. The plot, though heavily used in later years, works well and some of the band members were really relaxed on film. Plus, the film IS fun. So, while compared to a 1935 or 1940 film it's very weak, for 1929, it's actually quite nice and worth seeing if you, like me, adore old films.

"The Vagabond Lover" could be considered the perfect example of the early-talkie. The acting by Mr. Vallee is rather non-exsistant, but his singing and the music is quite pleasant, and the performance by the great Marie Dressler as "Auntie" makes up for the rest. The photography is very representative of the early sound era, with the actors grouped around a hidden mike with hordes of people in the frame. The sound itself is remarkably good, maybe the best remaining example of early sound recording. There is one chorus number which has a brief overhead shot of the type that Busby Berkely would make famous a year later in "Whoopee!". The film is a brief 65 minutes in length, and it is a rather modest black-and-white production, but it remains a telling window into the 1920s, with it's fashions, music and such. This was also one of the most profitable films of the year for the fledgling Radio Pictures, a new company set up that year to take advantage of the RCA Photophone system. The DVD has a rather dry commentary prolouge by a UCLA film specialist which appears to be taped in his apartment. Rather poorly edited, this feature is easy to skip on the DVD, once you have seen it once. Other players featured in this include Loretta Young's sister, Sally Blane, Eddie Nugent and especially Nella Walker, as Marie Dressler's rival for social prominence. The story, by James Ashmore Creelman, was purportedly based on Mr. Vallee's own carrer.

The Vagabond Lover is a historic film as it was the first to showcase a current popular radio star as its lead. In 1929 Rudy Vallee was the number radio crooner in the country and as such brought a built in audience to the theaters. That he hadn't quite got down the technique of acting period, let alone film acting was incidental for this film with its very slight plot.Rudy and his band The Connecticut Yankees play a second tier orchestra looking for a break. Rudy persuades them to break into the home of a noted leader and idol and audition even after he was rebuffed. When they're caught by the local constable Charles Sellon, they pretend the famous orchestra leader and his group and have to continue the deception right up to playing in a charity event organized by society grande dame Marie Dressler and her daughter Sally Blane. Of course it all works out in the end.The film didn't launch Vallee as a movie idol, his his ascetic personality just didn't work for a leading man. This film was done for RKO and later Warner Brothers tried twice to make a leading man of him with Sweet Music and Golddiggers in Paris and failed. The songs were taken from what Vallee had made popular on his radio program and they included such hits as A Little Kiss Each Morning and the title song. This was probably wise because I'm sure the producers knew this man was not an actor, yet. It would take Preston Sturges who cast Vallee in several of his films to make use of his unique personality and style in great series of character roles. After that curiously enough Vallee rarely sang in films, but still continued as a radio performer. By this time it was the Forties and people like Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dick Haymes were crowding Vallee and earlier singers for public attention including Vallee's chief rival Bing Crosby.If you like Rudy Vallee's singing as I do, by all means catch The Vagabond Lover, but realize you will not see the Rudy Vallee you might remember from later work.