In May 1998, actually, my first post appeared in Gary Morris’ now legendary site, the Bright Lights Film Journal, to wit: “What Kind of a Cowboy Are You? Eddie Cantor Goes West in Whoopee”, a film significantly more politically incorrect than the poster shown above.
True, this poster could easily be considered sexist by the easily offended, with a heavy tint of racism, but that’s nothing compared to the film itself, filmed in stunning 1930 two-color technicolor, which contains a heavy dose of old-fashioned blackface, something that millennials, and even their parents, have probably never seen. And there’s even more to offend Native Americans.
Well, consider yourselves warned. If you’ve got the guts, Whoopee!, (in my original review I inadvertently left off the exclamation point), has any number of brutally naïve charms, a blast of Flo Ziegfeld-style twenties Broadway that still echoes down the corridors of time.
My original review should let you know if you want to see this film, available on DVD since 2013. If you’ve got the stomach for Eddie’s blackface, you could also try Kid Millions, which features the young Nicholas Brothers. Eddie also turns up in Glorifying the American Girl, the only film directed by Flo Ziegfeld, also in two-color technicolor. Shot in New York rather than Hollywood, there are some technical problems, but dedicated Broadway babies, if such still exist, will want to see clips of Ziegfeld Follies stars like Helen Morgan, along with once-legendary New York Mayor Jimmy Walker.1 Also probably worth a gander, if you’re into this sort of thing, is the 1929 two-color technicolor Hollywood Revue of 1929, which doesn’t feature Eddie but does include a great many stars, both legendary (Joan Crawford) and forgotten (Cliff Edwards).2 If you’ve got both a strong stomach and a sick sensibility, you could try Eddie’s Roman Scandals, a stunning blast of Hollywood misogyny, racism, sado-masochism, and god knows what else, featuring Eddie in blackface running around a Roman “harem” singing “You’ve Gotta Stay Young and Beautiful If You Wanna Be Loved” while a black “slave girl” unhooks her white mistress’ bra.
Afterwords
If you’re interested in film, and good writing, check out Bright Lights, which has published hundreds of fascinating reviews. Keep up the great work, Gary!
- Walker was so famous that Hollywood made a film about him, Beau James, starring Bob Hope, which I’m guessing is probably not that funny. ↩︎
- Edwards, as “Ukulele Ike”, basically a novelty act, was a huge star in the twenties and achieved an unlikely reprise in the forties as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio. ↩︎
