Home Run on the Keys (1937)

• 57%
• 1937
• Music
• Roy Mack
• Babe Ruth
• Zez Confrey
• Byron Gay

A Warners/Vitaphone short that proves the Vitaphone shorts operation in New York was every bit as capable of making just as bad short subjects as those churned out by Educational Pictures. This one opens up with NY Yankee slugger (retired) Babe Ruth returning from pheasant hunting to a cabin shared with musicians Zez Confrey and Byron Gay, and the three of them being inspired to knock off a little highly-forgettable ditty called "Home Run on the Keys." Ruth also takes time to tell of the home run he called on a third strike, but manages to describe it coming in an incorrect situation. The three go back to New York to appear on a radio program where the Vitaphone Orchestra, led by David Mendoza, plays their "new hit". Mendoza, in a rare turn before the cameras, turns the baton over to The Bambino/Sultan of Swat, who directs the orchestra with all the style of a bull in a china shop. The very-young Three De Marcos (later to grow up to become the recording De Marco Sisters of the 40's and 50's) do much better on their song of "On the Beach at Bali Bali.