One Good Turn (1930) User Reviews

No good deed goes unpunished.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 January 2022]

Despite being a famous singer, Ruth Etting had a very limited number of film appearances. With 37 credits listed on IMDB, only four were for full-length films...probably because despite her lovely voice, Etting didn't possess movie star looks...and Hollywood, unfortunately, is all about looks. "One Good Turn" is one of her 34 short film appearances...though the plot is complex and the story easily could have been a full-length movie.

When the story begins, Ruth Eton (Etting) is in a singing duo with Eddie Farrell (Jay Velie). She is clearly the star and is carrying Eddie, so to speak. It's so obvious that Ruth is offered a lucrative solo contract. But Ruth is loyal and insists on keeping the partnership. In fact, she spends much of her time teaching Eddie to sing and improve his voice. And, when the duo is a success, he pays her back by dumping the act and going solo! But his big career soon falls flat when he loses his voice. What's next for him and his incredibly longsuffering ex-partner?

I noticed in quite a few of Etting's shorts, she plays the longsuffering woman in love with some knucklehead....which is interesting as her Hollywoodized relationship with a screwball gangster in real life followed this same pattern in "Love Me or Leave Me" (starring Doris Day as Etting).

So is this worth seeing? Yes, though it did seem that making it a short really hurt the film's believability due to the pacing. Worth seeing....but it left me wanting more.

Ruth Etting's torch goes out.

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 3/10 · 9 September 2007]

Ruth Etting was a 'torch' singer: a type of entertainer who is now deeply out of fashion ... and no loss, I think. A torch singer (invariably female) would keep a permanent throb in her voice while she moaned a masochistic ditty about some man who had done her wrong or didn't know she was alive, or both. Much of Ruth Etting's film career consisted of brief speciality numbers in someone else's movie, so she remains largely forgotten. The best Ruth Etting film performance I've seen remains Doris Day's portrayal in 'Love Me or Leave Me', the semi-accurate biopic ABOUT Etting.

SPOILERS COMINIG. Here we have one of those oddities of the early talkie era: a short subject which is a drama rather than a comedy, and also manages to pack in a few musical numbers. Sadly, the plot is deepest cliché: Ruth Eton (Etting) is a vaudeville vocalist, partnered on piano by Eddie Farrell. Their agents tell Ruth that she could be a star as a single, and Eddie is holding her back ... but, out of loyalty for Eddie (and love?), she won't leave him. Later, the same agents (one of them with an allegedly funny Yiddisher accent) tell Eddie that HE could be a star as a single if only he would dump Ruth. Of course, he does. Of course, he comes crawling back. Cue the diabetes.

Eddie is played by some guy named Jay Velie, and if you asked 'who?' that's part of the problem with this movie. Although I dislike Etting's style of vocalising, her talent and presence are undeniable. Jay Velie, however, has no presence and can just barely sing ... so, this plot line which sees him attaining stardom after abandoning his much more talented partner is utterly ludicrous. To show how creaky this plot is, the action is advanced by two silent-film intertitles and an insert shot of a newspaper headline. Matters are made even creakier by an undercranked stock shot of an applauding audience.

There's some witty dialogue, though. One observer comments "Eddie's no ham; you can cure a ham." Ruth has one of those "say, dearie" wise-cracking girlfriends of the Glenda Farrell mode. When Ruth comments "Eddie was all right until success went to his head", the unbilled girlfriend ripostes "It went to the place where it had the most room."

For me, there were two real points of interest in this short film. We briefly see a display advert listing the performers at a theatrical benefit, and I was intrigued by the list of names who were considered stars in 1930 ... including Walter Winchell and Robert L Ripley. (None of these people are actually seen in this film, alas.) Earlier, we see Ruth teaching Eddie to improve a lyric by putting a bit of slur into the melody line. I found this quite revealing. Torch singers were allegedly trading on their own emotions, experiencing real heartbreak in their personal lives and then putting it into their performances ... so I was intrigued to see Ruth Etting (basically playing herself here) admitting that she relies on vocal tricks in her performance. Sadly, the merits of this short musical drama don't outweigh its flaws and its dated subject matter. 'One Good Turn' made so little impression in 1930 that Laurel and Hardy were able to recycle its title a few months later. My rating for this Ruth Etting short: 3 out of 10.

A Little Look At Ruth Etting

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 18 September 2001]

A Warner Bros. VITAPHONE VARIETIES Short Subject.

A celebrated vaudeville chanteuse gives her unappreciated accompanist ONE GOOD TURN, much to her regret...

This is a pleasant little film, if somewhat uneven stylistically, which features Miss Ruth Etting, one of the popular singers of the period. She is in good voice - singing 'If I Could Be With You' with co-star Jay Velie - and handles the dramatic aspects of the role competently.

In the early days of the Talkies, when the movies were still reveling in their discovery of Sound - and, consequently, Noise - the musical Short Subject was a very natural development. Here the Studios could showcase vocal talent quite economically and gauge the audiences' responses. Virtual unknowns might become superstars, while veteran Broadway performers, without screen charisma, could quickly fizzle. Many of these Shorts still exist, allowing us to peep into a bygone era when Tin Pan Alley first collided with Hollywood.