Elstree Calling Alfred Hitchcock Xylophone scene 1930

Elstree Calling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock , André Charlot,Jack Hulbert,Paul Murray
Written by Adrian Brunel, Walter C. Mycroft, Val Valentine
Starring Teddy Brown, Helen Burnell, Donald Calthrop
Cinematography Claude Friese-Greene
Production company British International Pictures
Distributed by Wardour Films (UK)
Release date 1930
Running time 86 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Elstree Calling is a 1930 British film directed by André Charlot, Jack Hulbert, Paul Murray, and Alfred Hitchcock at Elstree Studios.
Synopsis
The film, referred to as "A Cine-Radio Revue" in its original publicity, is a lavish musical film revue and was Britain's answer to the Hollywood revues which had been produced by the major studios in the United States, such as Paramount on Parade (1930) and The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The revue has a slim storyline about it being a television broadcast. The film consists of 19 comedy and music vignettes linked by running jokes of an aspiring Shakespearean actor and technical problems with a viewer's TV set.
Hitchcock's contribution was the comic linking segments about a man trying to "tune in" the revue on his television set, but always failing to get the picture for long because of his needless tinkering. (In the UK, John Logie Baird's work in mechanical television in the 1920s made television a topical subject at the time.)
Production background
Imitating the lavish use of Technicolor by Hollywood studios at that time, two sequences in the film were artificially coloured by the Pathécolor process, which used stencils to tint selected areas of the black-and-white prints.
In their book Film's musical moment, Ian Conrich and Estella Tincknell write:
"The British equivalent of Hollywood's all-star revues was Elstree Calling (1930), produced by British International Pictures (BIP), which consisted mainly of musical and comedy items from stage shows of the day introduced by compère Tommy Handley. Lacking the lavish production values and visual spectacle of its Hollywood equivalents, Elstree Calling is now something of a curio item interesting chiefly for two reasons: Alfred Hitchcock (then contracted to BIP) was one of several directors employed on the production; and the film is quite possibly the first ever to refer directly to television (the linking narrative concerns a television broadcast of the revue, some six years before the BBC began regular television transmissions)."[1]

From IMB:
Elstree Calling consists on a series of 19 musical and comedy "vaudeville" sketches presented in the form of a live broadcast hosted by Tommy Handley (as himself). There are two "running gags" which connect the sketches. In one, an actor wants to perform Shakespeare, but he is continually denied air-time. The other gag has an inventor trying to view the broadcast on television. Four of the sketches are in color (in shades of yellow and brown only).