In 1929, RKO Films made its first 100% all-talking, all-musical film, Syncopation. It was released just after The Jazz Singer hit the screens.
Syncopation starred Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians and featured Morton Downey Sr., Barbara Bennett (sister of Joan and Constance), Bobby Watson, Ian Hunter, Osgood Perkins, and Dorothy Lee. (Shortly afterward, Barbara married Morton.)
The film was made by Waring’s Pennsylvanians and Dorothy Lee as they were appearing in the Broadway show Hello, Yourself. In between shows they would go over to the studios in Brooklyn and film their scenes.
Prints of the film have long been lost. But in December 1996, James Cavallo, a fan of Dorothy Lee and a film buff and collector, discovered that the Gosfilmofond of Russia contained a copy of Syncopation. After determining that it was the original 1929 film — not the remake of 1940 with an entirely different cast — he purchased a video copy.
The Fred Waring’s America collection of the Penn State University Libraries received a copy from Mr. Cavallo. So now a missing item in the Waring history has been found.
Peter T. Kiefer is Coordinator of Fred Waring’s America at Penn State University.
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