Vitaphone

Too tired of US politics. Going to talk about my father. Hello good people. Maybe I would have done a blog about something scary for Halloween, but I had my trick yesterday-someone egged my car. Right in front of my abode. The freaks were out last night! You ever had to clean egg off of your car? I didn’t even get angry. Another thing that is just not worth the energy. Focusing on my father feels good to my soul, so I post a lot on Social Media about Eddie. Then I forget what I put online. Someone found this photo I posted with an article about 2 years ago on Twitter and they Retweeted it!. They liked it that much. And that made me feel good. It really made me LOL.

In 1929 Eddie was in a musical called “Hot Chocolates”. He wrote a couple of songs and he wrote the comedy sketches. One sketch was “Sending a Wire”. A newspaper article read: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said “The whole town is talking about Eddie Green, prime colored comic, who will put on one of the funniest skits on the stage. He will dash from the Hudson Theater immediately after the final curtain to the National Broadcasting Company where he will re-enact his side-splitting “Telegraph Office” skit for Commander Byrd and his crew.” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle July 18, 1929).

Seeing this photo again made me wonder why a skit about a telegraph office would be funny. Eddie was trying to send the wire and James Baskette was the clerk. Sending a telegraph or “wire” was the thing in 1929, it was fast and you could communicate with people across the world. It led to the telephone, the fax machine and now the internet, losing favor after the 1929 stock market crash. However Eddie kept up with the times in his comedic sketches, and the telegraph would have been of interest to him as he was already a ham radio operator (had his own station) and he loved to communicate with people all over the world. The internet would have been right up his alley.

Well, Warner Bros. certainly liked the sketch as they produced a film for their Vitaphone Varieties series. The skit from “Connie’s Hot Chocolates”, “Sending A Wire”, became a Warner Brother’s Vitaphone film that was said to be the funniest Vitaphone comedy act “which has yet been produced”, and that it “kept thousands shaking with laughter.” The film is registered in the Library of Congress as Sending A Wire, Eddie Green and Co. (Warner Bros. (as The Vitaphone Corporation) 1929 Sending a Wire © September 28, 1929 Murray Roth (director); Eddie Green with Jimmy Baskett & (NYC) (vitaphone varieties – Cinematop). There is just the one film in existence and I will probably never get to view it, but just knowing it exists helps me know my father as an entertainer.

This was all so long ago. Even before my mother met my father. As a matter of fact she was only six in 1929. Eddie was 30 years older. Chronicling my father’s life has been deeply satisfying. I know my own positivity comes through Eddie. (My inner sarcasm comes from Mom.) My ability to laugh out loud comes through him. I used to tell her I was funny because Eddie was (she didn’t think I was funny). It’s good to be able to keep Eddie’s name and face in the fore of people’s memories. I feel much better now. I love you, Eddie.

Friends and family, stay safe, love each other and thanks, for stopping by. 🙂

According to today’s news, a new Black female movie director who has just finished directing Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle In Time”, has been chosen to direct Jack Kirby’s “New Gods” for Warner Bros. I have been following her rise, and when I read the words Warner Bros., my father flashed into my mind because he did a Warner Bros. Vitaphone Film.

The film is titled Sending A Wire. I felt that here is a connection (if somewhat remote) I can use to help make Eddie relevant to today. You know, Eddie was Black, he was a director, he worked with Warner Bros. and he was a Trailblazer.

I also communicate via Twitter. So I tweeted this information to the female director, yes, hoping for some type of acknowledgement. I am still in the process of promoting the biography I have written about my father and I am trying every way I can think of to get his story seen. I read somewhere that I should “do the same thing everyone else does, but do it differently”. Huh?? So I’m just doing what I think this advice is saying. I want to bring Eddie back to the fore of people’s minds. Because he was a trailblazer who was the best at what he did. His story can provide that pin-in-the-tush type of motivation for others.

Sending A Wire started out as a skit in a play titled Hot Chocolates and went on to become quite popular. From my book:

There was also “Sending A Wire”, written by Eddie, featuring Eddie and Jimmy Baskette, as a customer and clerk, respectively, in a telegraph office. The New York Age called Sending A Wire “riotously funny”. Evidently, Eddie was “knocking them ga-ga” in his telegraph skit at the Hudson.

James “Jimmie” Baskette, born February 16, 1904, would later become best known as “Uncle Remus” singing the song “Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah” in the 1946 Disney feature film, Song of the South.
Connie’s Hot Chocolates was hailed by critics and was touted as being fast, funny and frank. Hot Chocolates would go on to have 219 performances. The closing date was December 14, 1929.

The skit from “Connie’s Hot Chocolates”, “Sending A Wire”, became a Warner Brother’s Vitaphone film that was said to be the funniest Vitaphone comedy act “which has yet been produced”, and that it “kept thousands shaking with laughter.” The film is registered in the Library of Congress as Sending A Wire, Eddie Green and Co. New York Age February 1, 1930.

“Sending A Wire”, would go on to be shown at Loew’s Main St. New Rochelle Theater, December 7, 8 and 9, billed as “Eddie Green & Co.”, featured between the Hearst Metrotone News and Irene Franklin, and, at the Strand Theater on the same program with a Mickey Mouse cartoon called The Jazz Fool.

Okeh Records would record the song “Sending A Wire” with Eddie Green and Company (which can be found at the Library of Congress under Black Films: Paper Print Collection.)

At the time, Commander Richard E. Byrd, an America Naval Officer had started an expedition to the Antarctic, and had set up a base camp named “Little America” in the Antarctic on the Ross Ice Shelf. The Gannet Newspapers, which at the time included the Albany News and The Knickerbocker Press, decided to put together a stellar list of entertainers to perform over radio stations WGY and WHAM to be broadcast to “Little America”, for the enjoyment of the explorers. Commander Byrd would receive the short wave and the broadcast wave lengths to all broadcast listeners in the United States. Amsterdam Evening Recorder: “Tonight’s radio program for Commander Byrd-Radio entertainment, originating in three different cities will be broadcast by WGY and its short wave stations to Commander Richard Byrd and his men in Little America.

Eddie was added to the program specifically to do his “Telegraph Skit” which was said to be “one of the funniest skits on the stage.” Eddie would perform along with Ralph Rainger, the composer of “Moanin’ Low”, who was also invited. Some of the other stellar performers included Rudy Vallee, Fred Allen and comedian Ted Healy. At the end of the program letters and messages from the men’s families were read over the air.

Regarding Eddie Green’s performance on the radio program, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said “The whole town is talking about Eddie Green, prime colored comic, who will put on one of the funniest skits on the stage. He will dash from the Hudson Theater immediately after the final curtain to the National Broadcasting Company where he will re-enact his side-splitting “Telegraph Office” skit for Commander Byrd and his crew.” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle July 18, 1929).

“The whole town is talking about Eddie Green.” What a wonderful line to read about one’s father in the newspaper.

Thank you so much, for stopping by.

Eddie Green The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer-BearManor Media publisher