paulrjacobs
Since I am an organist, and I happen to favor everything 1930's when it comes to music, and Hollywood film, there is a little bias here. I uploaded the second part of this single feature of which someone only posted the beginning. Then because of one particular snob complaining to YouTube that i was copyright infringing, I took down the video. PLEASE SOMEONE UPLOAD THIS 11 MINUTE CLASSIC! Or ANYTHING JESSE CRAWFORD. Jesse was the greatest, most accomplished, and musically innovative MUSICIAN of all time. A true master, JESSE CRAWFORD 'poet of the organ'.SADLY, THERE IS ONLY THIS FILM SHORT, AND A FILM SHORT 5 min. 'SHORT' MADE IN THE UK just before WWII.It is such a shame that no other film footage exists of arguably the greatest musician to ever grace the keys of a pipe organ. Jesse and his then wife are playing Hammond tone wheel organs in this 'AT HOME' feature. Jesse went on to become the HAMMOND ORGAN COMPANY'S lead instructor, arranger/transcriber, and columnist for many music books, including the very informative Hammond organ publication ' LEGATO'. I have a dozen or so of these early 50's Legato 'magazines. Heavy duty paper and excellent song/tune arrangements by Jesse Crawford are just a couple reasons to check them out.
MartinHafer
I'll cut right to the chase here...the sort of music in "At Home" is very dated and I cannot imagine many folks enjoying it today...let alone back in 1939! Mr. and Mrs. Crawford are both organists who play together on separate organs. Technically, this is impressive but their versions of "Tea for Two", "The Very Thought of You" and the hellishly awful "I Love You Truly" are far from the best versions of these popular tunes of the day and reminds you of an old fashioned roller rink with its organ!IMDb points out that Mrs. Crawford says nothing and her husband speaks only a tiny bit. The rest is handled by Percy Helton (a VERY familiar actor in the 50s and 60s on TV and in films) and Anthony Ross. The plot, such as it is, consists of Helton coming to the residence where everyone is waiting for a prospective sponsor to arrive so they can pitch him a radio program...and they mistake Helton for this man.By the way, if this was supposed to be for a radio program, why was one of the acts a dance team?!!?!? No one could have known there were dancers dancing when they performed!!Overall, technically well made but a film many will have extreme difficulty finishing.
Michael_Elliott
Mr. & Mrs. Crawford at Home (1939) ** (out of 4) This Musical-Comedy from Warner doesn't work too well with either. In the film, a group of musicians are "performing" at the (as you guessed it) home of the Crawford's when a "radio" man stops by. They each show what they can offer in hopes that he will sign them up for their own radio show. There's not too much working in this short so it's clearly just going to be for those who enjoy watching everything Vitaphone was releasing back in the day. There are a couple fair music numbers like "When My Dream Boat Comes True" and "The Very Thought of You" but neither one is going to rank as a classic. There are a couple more numbers but they're rather bland and this includes a dance sequence, which wouldn't have been on the radio anyways. The Crawford's are a husband and wife team who play the organ but neither of them are overly impressive even though this was their fourth film credit. The "laughs" never really work either so this here is certainly a miss all around.