Bing Crosby’s Film Debut: 1930’s “King of Jazz“ as one of The Rhythm Boys

As familiar as I am with Bing Crosby, I was still struck by how young he was in his film debut - one of the Rhythm Boys in the 1930 review, “King of Jazz,“ a tribute to the popular bandleader Paul Whiteman. Happily, the film was shot in two-strip technicolor, so Bing’s gorgeous blue eyes just POP. Also, you can see his own natural hair, styled to cover his creeping baldness. (He would eventually wear hairpieces in his films). The Rhythm Boys were, the Whiteman Orchestra’s vocal trio featuring Bing, along with Harry Barris and Al Rinker. Bing was scheduled to sing “Song of the Dawn“ in the movie but a motor accident led to him being jailed for a time and the song was given to John Boles. It’s interesting to pay attention to Bing’s body language - in which his whole body latched on to the rhythm, his body bouncing and arms swaying. Between his blue eyes, his melodious voice and swinging body, his presence certainly commanded attention in his first film appearance. Audiences at that time were only familiar with jazz or band singers from records or early radio, knowing only their voices not their appearances. “King of Jazz“ was a review, shot in 2-strip technicolor, and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal Pictures. There is no story, only a series of musical numbers alternating with “blackouts“ (very brief comedy sketches with abrupt punch line endings) and other short introductory or linking segments. It still survives in a near-complete color print and is not a lost film, unlike many contemporary musicals that now exist only either in incomplete form or as black-and-white reduction copies. King of Jazz was the nineteenth all-talking motion picture filmed entirely in two-color Technicolor rather than simply including color sequences. At the time, Technicolor’s two-color process employed red and green dyes, each with a dash of other colors mixed in, but no blue dye.