Harry Richman was an interesting person who is sadly almost forgotten these days. He was an accomplished pilot as well as entertainer. His autobiography is a real romp.

It's a 84 year old clip. Just imagine what the world looks like in 84 years from now, in 2098.

"The thirties, and to think we're still singing this years later. (Well, I am.) " You're not alone. That song sticks with ya.

this video is like 80 years old but it still renders better than half the videos on youtube

I don't feel anyone should be offended by this video. It is a great historic piece to a great song. It reflects an era in time that, although different, change was an unstoppable force (Hence the actual “black” African decent dancers). I find it utterly fascinating to watch this video and see how different life is today compared to 1930. We need to remember the past as it was or else we will be doomed to repeat it. This video helps keep that in focus.

Irving Berlin was simply a genius of music..........

I'm sitting here in front of my computer screen playing ukulele to the chords of this amazing song while young Harry and the dancers sing and jump around the stage - in 2 days it'll be 90 years since they all performed it! It's spooky and wonderful that the technology lets us reach out and actually participate in something that happened long before we were born. I reckon they all would be mighty pleased to know that all this time later they were not only being watched and appreciated, but that a plunker like me could be right in there, playing with them! (but only if I didn't play E7 when Bb was required)

Harry Richman, Jr. (1896-1972) was a star of vaudeville, Broadway, a few films and a bit of early TV. He was also quite well endowed, according to the countless ladies who surrounded him. Between 1926 and 1932 Harry racked up 11 hits, from "Blue Skies" and "Birth of the Blues" to "Exactly Like You," "It Was So Beautiful" and "On The Sunny Side of the Street." His biggest hit and only chart-topper was 1930's "Puttin' On The Ritz" (this clip is from the 1930 film of the same title).

93 year old video, and still great!

2022 this is still relevant, go sit where fashion sits, puttin on the RITZ. Everyone is still trying to impress or degrade the next person. Nothing has changed.

Lyrics Have you seen the well-to-do Upon Lennox Avenue? On that famous thoroughfare With their noses in the air. High hats and tollard collars White spats and fifteen dollars Spending every dime For a wonderful time If you're blue And you don't know where to go to Why don't you go where Harlem sits Puttin' on the Ritz Angle down upon the bevee Of highbrowns from down the levee All that fits Puttin' on the Ritz That's where each and every Lulubelle goes Every Thursday evening with her swell bows Rubbing elbows Come with me and we'll attend their jubillee And see them spend their last two bits Puttin' on the Ritz If you're blue And you don't know where to go to Why don't you go where Harlem sits Puttin' on the Ritz Angle down upon the bevee Of highbrowns from down the levee All that fits And how they're Puttin' on the Ritz That's where each and every Lulubelle goes Every Thursday evening with her swell bows Rubbing elbows. Come with me and we'll attend their jubillee And see them spend their last two bits. Just Puttin' on the Ritz

I'm watching this performance 86 years later, great performance but wow times have changed

Quite the impressive production for its time.

thank you for saving and sharing these vintage recordings!

This song has been stuck in my head for days...and I love it.

I always listen to this when I'm down, never fails to cheer me up. Anyone for the ritz?

Taco's is like a disco version. I already knew this song, from Ella & Louis, from Fred Astaire's version on a vintage 30's LP. But I didn't know that it came from a Broadway musical, before it was filmed in Top Hat, I think it was, with Astaire. This clip from the stage musical is the real deal !! Look at those sets, the decor! - Right out of expressionist art; just like the early expressionist films. The buildings are expressionist even before they start moving at the end. Just fantastic!

Harrr Richmond a true showman........this film was a keeper even in today's world.

Harry Richman was an extremely wealthy and flamboyant showman. As an amateur pilot he personally financed and co-piloted an attempt to break the return flight across the atlantic in 1936 - seriously ambitious and risky undertaking. Nice to see the video.

This entire song is one continuous hook.

wow! what a treat to see the original performance of this song! thankyou！ I love the creepy buildings looming overhead. this is one of the timeless classics of the twentieth century. as meaningful today. if not more so.

Such a wonderful tune...and they really serve it up!

Thanks for posting this amazing historic clip.. Love the dancers & swaying skyscrapers!

91 years old! Still fresh! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

What an amazing set design! I like the monster buildings.

Thanks and kudos to all those who have access to and post these musical clips from the past.

I saw this film around 40 years ago, in a 35mm nitrate print, at Eastman House, Rochester. It was a good print.

I would have loved to have seen this in person! This was an amazing performance.

90 YEARS I LOVE THIS SONG

He lived his life to the fullest!

Thanks a lot for loading the video. These days it became very special for many of us! 2015-01-20

Even though there is many copies of this song, this is truly the one old song that many people should give recognition to.

I simply LOVE this one!

Mostly a stage performer, the thrice-married Harry only appeared in three feature films: "Puttin' On The Ritz" (1930), "The Music Goes 'Round" (1936) and "Kicking The Moon Around" (1938). He also turned up in two movie shorts, "Hollywood Snapshots #11" (1929) and "Screen Snapshots Series 9 #11" (1930). On TV, Richman was seen twice on "The Texaco Star Theatre" (1948) and three times on "The Ed Sullivan Show" (twice in 1952 and once in 1963). All I can suggest to find them is an online search.

Just love the old quality. This is the only one with the original quality. All the other ones are DVD type quality.

He does a good job of always staying in motion as not to be boring.

This is GOLD

Harry Richman was a big star in his day, though little remembered today. He didn't do much in movies, but his recording of this song was a hit.

Масштаб постановки просто поражает... Как же мы деградировли...

Primitive as it is, I love it. Love the song. Richman was an interesting study. Brilliant man.

This is the definition of music.

man what i would pay or sacrifice to go there with modern recoding equipment to get a full colour HD high quality version of the original play. it must have been like magic

It may 80, 90 or 100. When it's great music, who cares. This 72 year old such as heck enjoys it every time I hear it.

dude- Thank you for this upload!!

Great

I love this, thanks so much for sharing. Our world would be a better place if things were still like this. It's awesome that this clip is still around, considering how much early film from that time has been lost forever.

what talent and choreography. This could be on Broadway right now in 2017!!!!.

Kids: Justin Bieber 2010s Parents: Michael Jackson 1980s Grandparents: Elvis Presley 1950s Great Grandparents: Harry Richman 1920s

I watch this, and it's wonderful, but at the same time, one realises that these young, vibrant folks are probably no longer with us. Life goes by so very quickly. It may not seem to, but while you can you might as well enjoy yourself.

Loved this movie....it had Harry Richman, Joan Bennett and a host of other great early stars.

0:33 is the mr incredible becoming old part

TCM showed the movie once, years ago. It's almost impossible to see it today. What a pity!

Originally written and composed by Irvin Berlin Revised in 1942 to the lyrics people know today Have you seen the well-to-do up on Lenox Avenue On that famous thoroughfare with their noses in the air High hats and colored collars, white spats and fifteen dollars Spending every dime for a wonderful time If you're blue and you don't know where to go to Why don't you go where Harlem sits Puttin' on the ritz

this song is so damn classic

This was a #1 hit for Richman as Brunswick 4677 over an eight week chart run beginning Febuary 15, 1930. Broadway and movie star Harry had ten other hits between 1926 and 1932 and died in 1972 at age 77.

From 1923 until 1930 The Cotton Club was located on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 142nd Street in the Harlem area of Manhattan. It became a place where rich white folks would come to see the great black jazz acts that played there. The club itself was segregated to white audiences, and the patrons had to "rub elbows" with the residents of the area to get there. That is what this song was originally about. The first black entertainers at the club allowed to come mingle with the white audience were the Nicholas Brothers, the brilliant dancers, who were young kids at the time, because the audience insisted on meeting these exceptionally talented youngsters.

Thank you, this was great fun!

Una verdadera joya, un bello montaje de la época, con un tema muy famoso y actual, este tema sigue gustando. Muy bello.

Woooow, super antiq video! This song had a loooooooog life!

Thanks: My Brain needed this.

Great clip; a real curio from the days when Broadway ruled.

There's something frighteningly frantic about this!

The real syncopated rhythm he’s singing is just awesome! Most modern renditions are so blah!!! Great voice, too!

i always thought this song was just by Taco , i never knew that this song had been around since 1930 , i really appreciate your video it was truely fantastic, i enjoyed it very much, thanks for posting your video,

Really neet! Thoroughly enjoyed that! Thanks so much!

Just Amazing! I love this video!

I'm surprised such an old video was kept in such good condition.

Unfortunately I cannot answer your questions. My only advice is to go to the TCM website, because Turner Classic Movies is the only place I have seen this film. It is not currently scheduled to be shown, but it is in their film library. They have a function where you can request they show a particular film. I can't promise they will listen, but about 6 months ago I requested a movie they had not shown before. Perhaps it was just a coincidence but they did recently show it.

Me and my grandfather whas crying a litle bit for he whas 5 when this song come out

Everyone on here is way too young to get the context of this song-even before my time but I love the 20s. Read up on some jazz age history. For the first time, black music was listened to and danced to by the "flappers" and 'coming out' parties included a (black) jazz band. Read about Josephine Baker in Paris in the 1920s-Le Jazz Hot! It was daring and a great adventure to go down to Harlem to party. Like chopping off their hair, smoking, raising hemlines. It was an amazing time.

How is a video from 1930 clearer than any video filmed with an IPhone?

@kallemick ahhh tru thanx and so do i. i love this song ill start singing it in the middle of school or wen ever i start to think of sumthing that reminds me of the vid/song

Fantastic clip 0 .0 and the stagecraft entertains, too.

Ahhh... The age of the Musicals and the Boudeville... The 20's flavor... Hell YEAH!!!

@theprophet20 Jung was 95% right about American culture. Also, Irish everywhere should be proud of their nation with its great steps forward out of communal hatred in Northern Ireland, and also for its great economic advances. The human race is making PROGRESS! Let us REJOICE and not be pessimistic.

if you read this i wanna warn you about the "you know who version" they made a good old classic song into some new-techno-shit DONT WATCH IT ITS A PAIN TO THE EARS now youre warned

AMAZING ! so cool !!

Just beautiful

My grandfather grew up with Harry in the Cincinnati. They used to go rabbit hunting together. If you can find it, read his biography "A Hell of a Life". You might be amazed.

Absolutely wonderful !!!

There is a CD by Richman available as well in which he sings some of the songs he introduced including this one, Birth of the Blues, On the Sunny Side of the Street and Singing a Vagabond Song.

love it all...of them old songs i heard my mom play on the piano too

A compressed digital copy of a VHS tape of a 16mm film being projected.

Those buildings creep the hell out of me. Good song.

Great production number. GREAT video. Thanks for posting it.

that's soo good. they were marvelous. I read that the dancers made 7 bucks for their part and were glad to get it. Harry Richman the Singer, made millions, got to shack up with Clara Bow which makes me jealous.

great upload. I love it. thanks so much

Gosh I'd like to see this in high definition!

You only came here because of the video on the evolution of music from 1840-2013, right? Hehehe

siempre vuelvo a este video. Que riqueza de metraje.

Good song

Fabulous, those were the days!

wow thant you for putting that online

Delectable madness and joy overcomes everything and everyone. My parents knew Harry Richman well, my mother even having a kind of crush on this then super duper superstar. My folks, Veloz and Yolanda, were appearing the Empire Room at Chicago's Palmer House at the same time Richman was knocking them dead at Al Capone's Chez Paree. By the time they met Capone had just been sent up to Sing Sing, and gangster Joey Jacobson took over Chez Paree and used to drive my folks around Chi in his bullet proof car with two other bullet proof cars directly in front of and to the rear of Jacobson's -- he called these his "police"

@cwecub amen man. real artists, real talents, real dancers.

There is no defending racism..... HOWEVER.... the facts are: 1930 was a much, much different time then today. I idea that a large scale main stage production actually employeed "black" african decent dancers instead of Caucasians in black face is really quite progressive for that time. The segeration amongst the dancers was the way society was at that time. This video, as progressive as it is for its time, reflects what every day life would of been in 1930.

Just read Richman's autobiography, 'A Hell of a Life', a good read. What a lovable rogue!!

these production numbers were also originally filmed in color, but the color sequences don't survive as most copies of this film derive from old copies duped for black & white TV/reissue in the 40's or 50's... So these scenes especially looked washed out as they had color contrast originally & look washed-out in Black & White...

Awesome~

Nice to see someone else who has the same opinion of music as I do. I hate music today :( It makes me wonder what music will be like in 20years...