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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

STRIKE ME PINK (1936)

Sam Goldwyn, after producing an annual Eddie Cantor musical-comedy from 1930 to ‘34, skipped a year before making this final, downsized vehicle. Oddly, the smaller budget helps in comparison to the earlier over-produced films; more consistently silly & fun, faster on its feet and mercifully BlackFace free. If only the Harold Arlen songs were more memorable. Director Norman Taurog, on a break from knockabout fluff @ Paramount with Bing Crosby, keeps Eddie on his toes as new manager of an amusement park, trying to resist mob-man Brian Donlevy who’s pressuring him to take a truckload of ‘fixed’ slot machines. No one seems overly concerned or convinced by the blackmail scam Goldwyn’s writers have cooked up for a plot. (Something to do with nightclub singer Ethel Merman pretending to kill a guy then getting Eddie to take the blame.) But it hardly matters. Cantor scores on about half his bits and gets one solo & one duet of the unmemorable tunes; Merman resists a dose of ‘glam’ photog treatment, but sings the heck out of her two solos/one duet. And it all ends in a crazy, overextended chase thru the Amusement Park with just enough gags landing to come off.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Cantor was twice tamed by Hollywood. First by Goldwyn, who made him cuddly & less Lower East Side Jewish. Then by strict enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code after 1934; tough when your signature song is ‘Making Whoopee!’ Just one more 'A' pic (@ 20th/Fox) before slipping to 'B's and radio.

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