Soon after the beginning of the talkies, radio started to cannibalize Hollywood talent
It offered stars huge sums for brief appearances on the air, to the great distress of movie exhibitors who claimed that people would rather stay home and hear their favorites than pay to see as well as hear them
Soon the screen returned the compliment, with "The Big Broadcast," the first in a series of Paramount musicals lightly fooling the new medium of radio
In a role obviously suggested by his off-camera life, Crosby played a genial but irresponsible radio singer who loses his girl and his job with a radio station
Going on a spree, he meets wealthy and also lovelorn Stuart Erwin, who eventually puts him back on the air The plot was merely a frame for appearances by radio stars who were currently popular on the airwaves: Kate Smith, The Boswell Sisters, the Mills Brothers, Cab Calloway and his band, and others
The score included three of Bing's best-known tunes: "Please," "Here Lies Love," and the song that became his trademark, "Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."
The pattern was set from the start: Crosby, would caress a girl or a lyric with equal self-assurance, and his full and rich voice, on screen or on radio, became one of the familiar of the decade
In a role obviously suggested by his off-camera life, Crosby played a genial but irresponsible radio singer who loses his girl and his job with a radio station
Going on a spree, he meets wealthy and also lovelorn Stuart Erwin, who eventually puts him back on the air The plot was merely a frame for appearances by radio stars who were currently popular on the airwaves: Kate Smith, The Boswell Sisters, the Mills Brothers, Cab Calloway and his band, and others
The score included three of Bing's best-known tunes: "Please," "Here Lies Love," and the song that became his trademark, "Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."
The pattern was set from the start: Crosby, would caress a girl or a lyric with equal self-assurance, and his full and rich voice, on screen or on radio, became one of the familiar of the decade