to present her as the star of
a new musical comedy when the current `Scandals' terminates its run."42 Although White and Merman never did that next show, we do learn just how
much the star-making machinery considered her secretarial background key
in the making of Ethel Merman.
Early Film Work
Warner Bros. had been the first of Hollywood's major studios to take a gamble with sound. It was they who produced Don Juan, the first picture to use
synchronized sound in 1926, and they who caused a huge sensation the following year in TheJazz Singer, when Al Jolson said, "You ain't seen nothin'
yet!" directly, it seemed, to the audience. Other studios were sent scrambling,
and Paramount made an especially energetic push into sound, particularly
with musicals-a genre suddenly made possible by technology. Paramount
adopted stories that had been Broadway musical successes and raided its talent, luring in proven talent such as Rouben Mamoulian, Bing Crosby, and
Fred Astaire.
Despite her disappointing experience with Warners, Ethel signed on with
Paramount, and in 1930, just before Girl Crazy, she appeared in her first feature film, Follow the Leader.43 Initially, Leader had run on Broadway as Manhattan Mary, an Ed Wynn (1886-1966) vehicle in which he perfected his
comic routine as the "Perfect Fool." Gertrude Purcelle and Sid Silvers
adapted it from the stage, and the director was Paramount's Norman Taurog
(uncle of Jackie Cooper), who went on to helm a long list of short and
feature-length musicals, with stars from Ethel to Elvis Presley. Leader has
Wynn playing a former acrobat, now a bumbling waiter at a restaurant
owned by the mother of Ginger Rogers's character. There, a group of gangsters, the Hudson Dusters, force Wynn to kidnap star performer Helen King
(Merman) so that Mary Brennan (Rogers) can take her part in George White's
Scandals. (Some say that Ethel was the last-minute replacement for Ruth
Erring, the more established singer to whom the young star was now being
compared.) As Helen King, Merman gets to perform Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal's "Satan's Holiday."
Like comedy typical of the era, the humor in Follow the Leader was corny
and self-conscious, not attempting to cloak its schtick in too much naturalism; Wynn's squeaky voice alone made that impossible. Leader incorporated references to current events, situations, and individuals (e.g., Prohibition,
George White), even details of its cast members' lives. For instance, although
Ethel wouldn't appear in George White's Scandals until a year later, it was quite
plausible that she might already be its star performer. That she and Ginger
Rogers both worked together in Girl Crazy within months of Leader's release
enriches its story, especially since reports varied on just how well Rogers handled the lesser-billed Merman's success in the play. And the presence of
Rogers's fictional mother in the movie was not far from real life, since Mother
Rogers exerted very tight control over her daughter's career.
The bulk of Merman's work with Paramount, however, was in one- and
two-reelers from 1930 to 1933. These short movies would be shown before feature films or in mixed programs interspersed with live acts in a revuelike
structure of mixed spectacles. Most shorts ran for about ten minutes, just
long enough to sketch out the slimmest of stories and contain two or three
songs. The work was hardly taxing for Ethel, and she shot most of these
shorts while she worked on Girl Crazy, Scandals, and Take a Chance at the old
Paramount Studios around the corner from the family home in Astoria. Each
movie took about a day of her time, and in all, Merman appeared in Her Future, Devil Sea, Be Like Me, Ireno, Roaming, Old Man Blues, Let Me Call You
Sweetheart, Time on My Hands, You Try Somebody Else, and Song Shopping.
The most innovative ones were produced by the New York animation studio of Dave and Max Fleischer, whose films combined animation with
a new musical comedy when the current `Scandals' terminates its run."42 Although White and Merman never did that next show, we do learn just how
much the star-making machinery considered her secretarial background key
in the making of Ethel Merman.
Early Film Work
Warner Bros. had been the first of Hollywood's major studios to take a gamble with sound. It was they who produced Don Juan, the first picture to use
synchronized sound in 1926, and they who caused a huge sensation the following year in TheJazz Singer, when Al Jolson said, "You ain't seen nothin'
yet!" directly, it seemed, to the audience. Other studios were sent scrambling,
and Paramount made an especially energetic push into sound, particularly
with musicals-a genre suddenly made possible by technology. Paramount
adopted stories that had been Broadway musical successes and raided its talent, luring in proven talent such as Rouben Mamoulian, Bing Crosby, and
Fred Astaire.
Despite her disappointing experience with Warners, Ethel signed on with
Paramount, and in 1930, just before Girl Crazy, she appeared in her first feature film, Follow the Leader.43 Initially, Leader had run on Broadway as Manhattan Mary, an Ed Wynn (1886-1966) vehicle in which he perfected his
comic routine as the "Perfect Fool." Gertrude Purcelle and Sid Silvers
adapted it from the stage, and the director was Paramount's Norman Taurog
(uncle of Jackie Cooper), who went on to helm a long list of short and
feature-length musicals, with stars from Ethel to Elvis Presley. Leader has
Wynn playing a former acrobat, now a bumbling waiter at a restaurant
owned by the mother of Ginger Rogers's character. There, a group of gangsters, the Hudson Dusters, force Wynn to kidnap star performer Helen King
(Merman) so that Mary Brennan (Rogers) can take her part in George White's
Scandals. (Some say that Ethel was the last-minute replacement for Ruth
Erring, the more established singer to whom the young star was now being
compared.) As Helen King, Merman gets to perform Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal's "Satan's Holiday."
Like comedy typical of the era, the humor in Follow the Leader was corny
and self-conscious, not attempting to cloak its schtick in too much naturalism; Wynn's squeaky voice alone made that impossible. Leader incorporated references to current events, situations, and individuals (e.g., Prohibition,
George White), even details of its cast members' lives. For instance, although
Ethel wouldn't appear in George White's Scandals until a year later, it was quite
plausible that she might already be its star performer. That she and Ginger
Rogers both worked together in Girl Crazy within months of Leader's release
enriches its story, especially since reports varied on just how well Rogers handled the lesser-billed Merman's success in the play. And the presence of
Rogers's fictional mother in the movie was not far from real life, since Mother
Rogers exerted very tight control over her daughter's career.
The bulk of Merman's work with Paramount, however, was in one- and
two-reelers from 1930 to 1933. These short movies would be shown before feature films or in mixed programs interspersed with live acts in a revuelike
structure of mixed spectacles. Most shorts ran for about ten minutes, just
long enough to sketch out the slimmest of stories and contain two or three
songs. The work was hardly taxing for Ethel, and she shot most of these
shorts while she worked on Girl Crazy, Scandals, and Take a Chance at the old
Paramount Studios around the corner from the family home in Astoria. Each
movie took about a day of her time, and in all, Merman appeared in Her Future, Devil Sea, Be Like Me, Ireno, Roaming, Old Man Blues, Let Me Call You
Sweetheart, Time on My Hands, You Try Somebody Else, and Song Shopping.
The most innovative ones were produced by the New York animation studio of Dave and Max Fleischer, whose films combined animation with
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