KID MILLIONS (1934)

In spite of a way with comic song that still pleases, especially slightly risque ones (Making Whoopee!; If You Knew Susie; You’d Be Surprised), B’way star Eddie ‘Banjo Eyes’ Cantor is a tough sell these days, missing the personal hook of Ziegfeld Follies co-stars like Fanny Brice (kept alive via Streisand in FUNNY GIRL, Will Rogers (a fatal plane crash at the height of his fame), or W.C. Fields (with his bristling curmudgeonly legacy).  Cantor’s rep now largely resting on the six early film musicals made for Samuel Goldwyn (1930 - ‘36), none holding up well.  And then there’s the BlackFace (in five of the six) adding a major obstacle to the technical challenges & slow pace as early film musicals learned to walk.  And by the time they got up to speed (here with director Roy Del Ruth), Cantor’s schnook shtick (sexually & ethnically ‘cleansed’ by Goldwyn for broadest appeal) had started to fall out of favor.  This penultimate Goldwyn project sends him to backlot Egypt where a $77 mill. inheritance waits, challenged by three other parties, as well as a local promise of death for the winning claimant.  Fine in theory, but the jokes & score are lame; only Irving Berlin's interpolated minstrel number ‘Mandy’ stands out, especially with the Nicholas Brothers getting showcased.*  Also, young Ethel Merman, in clarion voice, making her feature debut.  (She sings the song on the sheet music pictured above.)  Then Ann Southern, George Murphy, Edgar Kennedy, Warren Hymer, Stanley Fields, Paul Harvey, showy support above the line, but they pretty much sink.  All before the split-reel finale, a trip to Eddie’s Ice Cream Factory showcasing the new, improved 3-strip TechniColor.  It looks like a trailer for some never made Willy Wonka movie. If only!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *For a modern audience, seeing actual Black performers like the fabulous Nicholas Brothers working next to Cantor in BlackFace must seem incredibly odd . . . at the least!  Yet, it was still common at the time for Black stage acts to ‘black up.’  America’s top Black vaudevillian, the great Bert Williams, featured with Cantor in the 1917 & 1919 Ziegfeld Follies always worked in BlackFace.  (Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson usually gets credit for being the first Black star to go without.)