SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

classicsoncall Just a delightful and still fresh film after sixty plus years, with an all black cast that does a great job with the material. I remember the principal players from TV variety shows of the later 1950's, and who can forget Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson from the Jack Benny Program? I'd only seen Anderson in minor movie roles before (1938's "You Can't Take It With You" and 1939's "You Can't Get Away With Murder"), so to see him in the lead here with Ethel Waters was a nice treat. It was also cool to see him display an all around talent with his singing and dancing, something you rarely got during his association with Benny. Still, the scene where he and Waters sang the title song left me wondering whether he might have been dubbed, as it didn't feature his unique gravelly voice, although his rendition of 'Consequences' later in the story and the duet with Lena Horne surely did.And Lena Horne - modern day viewers might compare her to Halle Berry in the looks department, but if truth be told, Ms. Horne had it all over Berry in terms of talent. I did more than one double take as well when her character Georgia Brown appeared almost topless from the back and with midriff exposed upon securing that sexy halter top. Then when she got a leg up on Little Joe (Anderson), I had to wonder how he contained himself.As a musical, the picture really got into high gear during the second half, with virtually number after number showcasing a variety of talent, not the least of which was the legendary Ethel Waters. As the 'terrific prayin' wife of Little Joe, Ms. Waters was a stand-out in every one of her scenes. Throw Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong into the mix, and you have a veritable lock on virtually all the black talent in Hollywood at the time.As for the comedic interludes, it was great to see some of my all time favorite black actors of the era as part of the Lucifer Jr. bunch - Mantan Morelan and Wille Best, a duo that appeared somewhat regularly in the Monogram run of Charlie Chan films during the late Forties. As Lucifer Jr., Rex Ingram had one of the picture's most telling lines when he remarked that he was stuck with a bunch of 'B' idea men because all of his 'A' men were over in Europe. Released in 1943 during the height of World War II, that reference presumably related to Satan's cultivation of future citizens of Hell, namely Hitler and Mussollini. Considering that type of company, there was just no way that Little Joe Jackson would ever fall victim to any trap set for him by the devil's minions.

Jem Odewahn Genius director Vincente Minnelli's debut remains a wonderful celebration of the talent of his all-black cast. It's also interesting showcase of the technique he would fully use later in his career in integrating musical numbers with plot seemingly effortlessly. While I do think the plot, the fight for the soul of Little Joe by the Devil and God, is a little thin and takes a while to heat up, there is plenty to enjoy in this film. Ethel Waters is quite astonishing as Joe's good wife, Petunia- what a performer! And Lena Horne sizzles (how often in the 40's did we get to see the back of a woman's bra? OK, it's hardly a big deal now, but I can't recall seeing anything like it in a 40's movie) as bad girl Georgia who could lead Joe into sin. Curious to see the DVD comes with a disclaimer that apologies for the racist attitudes prevalent in the time, and apparently evident in the film. Well, I do not question the prevailing attitudes of the age, but where are they present in this movie? I actually saw this film as a great celebration of African-American talent, not as a way of demeaning them or anything. Racist would be replacing the talented cast with white performers...and they didn't. I thought every cast member was portrayed with intelligence, even if the plot was simplistic.

bkoganbing Cabin In The Sky marked Vincente Minnelli's feature film debut as a director and he certainly started on a grand scale. Louis B. Mayer was purportedly reluctant to do black cast feature film with an A Budget, but Minnelli and Arthur Freed's faith in Minnelli paid off big time.Cabin In The Sky, musical fantasy, with score by John LaTouche and Vernon Duke ran for 156 performances in the 1940-1941 Broadway season. The only two members of the cast who made it to the screen version was lead Ethel Waters and Rex Ingram as Lucifer, Jr. Unless of course you count the Hall Johnson Choir. It would have never been made if MGM could not get Ethel Waters to repeat her role as the wise and faithful Petunia Johnson praying ever so that her husband Little Joe Johnson gets saved from his evil ways of drinking and gambling and carousing with that no good Georgia Brown on whom no gal made has got a shade. Come to think of it, that song should have been interpolated in the score, MGM should have paid any price for it.MGM got their work out of Ethel though. She appeared in Cairo with Jeanette MacDonald and Robert Young and the contrasting styles of MacDonald and Waters is something to see in that film.On Broadway Little Joe's part was played by someone who would make a big splash in Hollywood this same year of 1943. Because Dooley Wilson was playing piano at Rick's place in Casablanca, I guess he missed repeating his role. Stepping in for Wilson was America's most well known butler, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson who did the impossible, get rich working for Jack Benny.Sweet Georgia Brown was played by Lena Horne, the devil had no better temptress ever on screen, not even Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees. She does a mean version of Honey In The Honeycomb.The plot's a simple one. Petunia brings her husband Little Joe to church for the hundred and umpteenth time to get himself saved, but he slips away for a crap game and gets himself shot in the process. He's about to enter the devil's domain, but Petunia's prayers get him a six month stay of his sentence to see if he can mend his ways. After that both heavenly and hellish forces work overtime to have claim to his soul. LaTouche and Duke gave Ethel Waters two of her best known numbers to sing, the title song and Taking A Chance On Love. Cabin In The Sky has a unique distinction of being one of the few Broadway musicals that came to the screen. Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg wrote some new material including a song for Eddie Anderson Life's Full of Consequences and another song uniquely identified with Ethel Waters, Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe.Louis Armstrong is in Cabin In The Sky as Lucifer's Trumpeter and while we get a couple of licks from Satchmo, I do so wish that someone at MGM would have given him a number for himself. He doesn't standout as he usually does because of that.Still Cabin In The Sky is a delightful film, a real treat with some of the best talent in the human race in it.

theowinthrop Let's call it a deserved "10" but with a sense of trouble for one's conscience.In 1943 it was nearly impossible to consider any film with a predominantly African-American cast as serious by most Americans of Caucasian or non-African-American backgrounds. Typical fare from Hollywood was a series of stereotypes, usually for comic purposes. However there had been a few films that (even with the stereotypes) suggested more was there. King Vidor's HALLELUJAH in 1929 dealt with African-American revivalism. Two Broadway hits, O'Neill's THE EMPEROR JONES (with star Paul Robeson recreating the role of Brutus Jones) and THE GREEN PASTURES had been done with mostly African-American casts (Dudley Digges did play a critically important role in THE EMPEROR JONES, but he was an exception). The 1929 and 1936 versions of SHOW BOAT did deal with the "Jim Crow" south, and the issue of racially mixed marriages. The film of Fanny Hurst's novel IMITATION OF LIFE (1933) dealt with a young woman trying to pass for white and breaking her mother's heart as a result. GONE WITH THE WIND passed on the myths of how happy the slaves were in the South, but Hattie McDaniel's performance of "Mammy" was vivid and strong, and won the first Oscar for an African-American performer. Finally, in 1942, John Huston's film, IN THIS OUR LIFE, dared to suggest that a young African-American man could try to study law to enter the legal profession.When Vincent Minelli was assigned to do the MGM musical version of CABIN IN THE SKY, most insiders thought that it would be a flop. Minelli had never directed a film before, and was an unknown quantity in Hollywood's talent market. Actually he was a good choice - he was a veteran of Broadway musical productions, and was just the right person to work on a film based on a Broadway musical. It was his first film, and proved to be a great success.It think it is due in part to his determination to show what he could bring out of the musical, and also the equal determination of the cast, led by Ethel Waters (who played the lead "Petunia" on Broadway), Eddie Anderson ("Joe"), Lena Horne (as temptress "Georgia Brown"), John Bubbles ("Domino Johnson"), Kenneth Spencer ("The General/ Rev. Greene"), and Rex Ingram ("Lucifer Jr."). Other familiar faces crop up like Willie Best, Mantan Morland, Oscar Polk, Butterfly McQueen, Louis Armstrong (oddly wasted in a mostly comic speaking role), and Duke Ellington and his orchestra. It's hard to imagine this but this film effort had the cream of Hollywood's available African-American performers in it. And they wanted to show what they could do.The story is about the devotion of Petunia to her husband Little Joe, who is weak and constantly gambling. But he hopes to win a fortune to give Petunia the things she always wanted. Unfortunately he is also infatuated with Georgia, a sexy singer at the gambling house/night club he heads for. One night (while supposedly seeking forgiveness for his sins at church) Joe is lured to the nightclub into a dice game, and is shot by Domino. He is treated at home and the film goes from this point to it's conclusion with a battle between God's messenger, "the General" (always wearing white uniforms), and "Lucifer Jr." and his minions. Due to a technicality Joe is not to die, but is given six months more to show his wife's devotion is strong enough to put him permanently on the good and narrow path. Lucifer Jr. and his associates (including Morland, Armstrong, and Best) are determined to show Joe cannot change.The cast shows what they could do. Waters in particular has two songs that became standards: "Happiness is a Guy named Joe", by Harold Arlin and Y.I.P. Harburg, and "Taking a Chance On Love" by Vernon Duke from the original score. But Horne is allowed to sing as well (though one number was cut here but transposed elsewhere). Bubbles does his great dance and song act in the latter part of the film, in the number "Shine". Even Anderson (best recalled for being Jack Benny's foil as "Rochester") demonstrates singing in a duet with Horne, and dance in a number with Waters.I suppose my favorite though is Ingram. He's now the forgotten man in African-American film history, because he never had the degree of public attention that Paul Robeson received. But he appeared in the lead as "De Lawd" in the movie version of THE GREEN PASTURES, as "Lucifer Jr." here, as the genie in the Alexander Korda epic THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1941), and graced other films as well (as the gentle valet to Ronald Colman in THE TALK OF THE TOWN, where he starts crying at his boss's insistence at shaving off his distinguished goatee). Ingram, I feel, could play any kind of part. Given the paucity of good lead parts in his day, that he got three of them shows Hollywood and British producers thought well of him. Here he does not sing (I suspect he did not have the voice) but he is enjoying his wickedness throughout. He also has one of the best lines in the film - complaining of the lack of good ideas (in getting Joe's soul): he says that it's because the best idea men in Hell are currently in Europe (this being the fourth year of World War II). The film is actually quite entertaining to this day - although the stereotypes of crap shooting African-Americans is unsettling. But think of this point: this is the first film I know of from Hollywood where a black professional is shown who is not a minister! When Eddie Anderson is treated for his gunshot wound, the physician is black, and is not a stereotype.