It is always dif­fi­cult to watch silent films of early Tri­an­gle shows, which are as famous for their music and witty lyrics as for the all male kick­lines (read our pre­vi­ous blog for an intro­duc­tion). Even with­out sound, how­ever, the films of All In Favor are still a visual treat. Footage of the per­for­mance, a daz­zling dis­play of vir­tu­os­ity and color, is alter­nated with dress­ing rooms scenes, dis­play­ing the fun of stock­ings, wigs, and long flow­ing skirts.

All in Favor, is, in Triangle’s own words, a “fast-moving musi­cal com­edy satire on Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, its meth­ods and mad­ness,” set in a lit­tle town in Indi­ana in the 1920s, where a mayor is run­ning for reelec­tion with the help of  his “non-too-honest” cam­paign man­ager. His oppo­nent is the reform can­di­date widow Dawes, whose daugh­ter dates a Prince­ton stu­dent  (a sum­mary of the story, taken from the press release, can be found in the Daily Prince­ton­ian). The script was writ­ten by Tri­an­gle pres­i­dent Fran­cis S. Hart­ley ’50 (pic­tured at 0:16), vice-president Thomas H. Mid­dle­ton ’48, sec­re­tary Kennedy Williams ’48 and Edward H. Tuck ’49.

The first of the two films, which includes excerpts from Act I, opens with prepa­ra­tions prior to the show, includ­ing dress­ing room scenes and orches­tra prac­tice (0:18–2:10). Although some of the footage on the stage includes singing and act­ing, the two films merely cap­ture the 16-man Tri­an­gle cho­rus, per­form­ing spe­cialty dances and pro­duc­tion num­bers cre­ated by chore­o­g­ra­pher Mor­gan Lewis. In Act I this includes the Can-Can shown at 4:42. The photo at the right, which was found in the Tri­an­gle Club Records, shows film star Henry Fonda, adjust­ing the garter of cho­rus leader James C. Neely ’48. Although Fonda attended one of Triangle’s rehearsals, he is not included in the films fea­tured here.

The film ends with the min­strel show at the mayor’s cam­paign rally (7:38), a par­tic­u­lar nov­elty that received a lot of attention.

The sec­ond film, which cap­tures Act II of the per­for­mance, opens with a mem­ber of the cho­rus (a “chorine”) pulling on stock­ings, which is fol­lowed by a pris­oner escape (0:27) and chorines danc­ing the Charleston (1:24). A tra­di­tional bal­let, pre­ceded by another dress-up scene, is shown at 3:40. When the cur­tain falls, the casts sings the Prince­ton alma mater “Old Nas­sau” (7:17).

Exist­ing pho­tographs of the per­for­mance did not allow us to iden­tify indi­vid­ual actors and cho­rus mem­bers. If any­one is able to add names to the faces on these films, please com­ment on this blog!

These 16mm films are part of the Tri­an­gle Club Records at the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Archives (box 177).  Mudd Library is thank­ful for the sup­port that the Tri­an­gle Alumni Board pro­vided for dig­i­tiz­ing these films and unlock­ing their contents.