[78-L] Billy Murray on Popeye vol.3, "Finding His Voice"

[Chris Zwarg]

At 19:14 15.11.2008, you wrote:

>Yesterday I picked up the DVD set "Popeye the Sailor vol.3, 1941-1943" at Best Buy. On the second disc, under "Special Features" is the 1929 Fleischer short "Finding His Voice-An Animated Cartoon Synchronized to Voice and Sound"(though the characters are actually a little OUT of synch as they speak!). It's not news that Billy Murray did cartoon voices, but I wanted to point out this set so that Murray fans could actually SEE it when buying this set.
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>?????????????????? Synopsis:
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>Murray plays a character called "Talkie", who we see playing the "Anvil Chorus" on a xylophone. He then meets up with a silent character called "Mutie"?(who is mute) & 'speaks' via subtitles over both their heads-which "Talkie" has to look up at to read them! Talkie takes the silent mute to a one "Dr. Western, Film Surgeon, Voices Lifted". He takes Mutie's pulse & says, "Why man, you're running at 60! We'll have to pep you up to 90!"-a reference to silent & sound running?speed of 35mm film's feet per minute rate. Then the Doc takes them both to a movie set, where studio carpenters are hammering away noisily. Doc says, "Now Talkie, let's put on an act for Mutie, and let him follow it through". At this point a recording?bell rings & Talkie sings "Love's Old Sweet Song"-BUT MURRAY DOESN'T ACTUALLY SING THIS!! It's some studio singer rather like Lewis James or any of the 1920s tenors(I'm not denigrating Lewis James here, I've always loved his voice). 

IMDB says the second singer is Walter Scanlan (aka Walter van Brunt).

Chris Zwarg