Artie Shaw's Class In Swing (1939) *** (out of 4) If you're a fan of shorts then you've probably seen dozens of musical ones where jazz or swing music is shown. Many of these shorts in the 30s and 40s might have been viewed by people in a theater who had no idea what the genre was and this interesting Paramount film uses Artie Lang to introduce swing music to those unfamiliar with it.
If we look at the video for what it is supposed to be, it does the job very well.
When you see Artie Shaw in this film, it's hard to imagine that this ordinary looking guy would marry eight times--and to such women as Lana Turner and Ava Gardner! What they saw in him apparently was fleeting--and vice-versa.
