Sonja Henie In “Second Fiddle”

Northern Advocate, 16 December 1939, Page 14

Sonja Henie In “Second Fiddle”

Swing music has pretty well run its course and will in a short while be a thing of the past, declares Irving Berlin, dean of America’s popular song writers.

The famed master of the modern ballad and dance music, who gave the world its first real taste of ragtime and then blazed the trail into jazz and swirig with some 600 compositions, asserts that the popularity of swing has visibly diminished and is definitely on the way out. “The trend to so-called musical sanity is very apparent today. A year ago, the music heard over the air was predominantly swing but today There is far better balance in the menu,” Berlin said. In place of swing, he prophesied, will come sweet music, with the emphasis on melody. It will be a return to normal. Berlin has just completed six new numbers foi his forthcoming production, Irving Berlin’s “Second Fiddle,” the 20th Century-Fox film with Darryl F. Zanuck in charge of production, stars Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power and features Rudy Vallee and Edna May Oliver. Only one of these songs is swing, the composer points out, which is about the proportion that would be popular when the picture was released, he figured. The swing number is ‘Back to Back,” which introduces a new step that probably will become a ballroom craze. Evolved by Harry Losee, who staged Sonja’s skating ensembles, the dance is a variation of the Lambeth Walk which the participants execute while back to back.

The other songs differ from Berlin's previous musical efforts, he points out, in that each story will be a definite part of the story. “We are trying something a little out of the ordinary with the music in “Second Fiddle,” explained the composer. “In the past songs could be classed only as musical accompaniments. Sometimes they fitted well into the story being unfolded on the screen and sometimes not, but the songs for ‘Second Fiddle’ will be an integral part of the plot.”