Good Morning, Eve!

Joan Crawford isn't mentioned in the cast. But she is one of the beach girls wearing a yellow bathing suit on her knees next to a blonde with back to the camera.

The most amazing thing about this entertaining little short is the fantastic condition that it has survived in for the past 77 years. Not only does it feature color that is perfect, but the clarity and cleanliness of the print are extraordinary. This film looks like it was shot last week instead of decades ago. The slender storyline has Adam and Eve wandering through the ages and there are a few good lines and some pretty good musical numbers interpolated. This film was probably made as an experiment to test the then-new three color Technicolor which is seen to beautiful advantage. There are costumes of every color, interior shots, exterior shots, and just for good measure, A gorgeous beach shot. Simply breathtaking.

Warner Bros. must have been gearing up for producing their first full-length feature in Technicolor when they made this experimental short starring LEON ERROL as Adam and JUNE MacCLOY as Eve, both wearing abbreviated costumes covered with leaves. The only real asset is the Technicolor which looks fine.

Story has the two of them dreaming about frolicking through the centuries with various famous people--beginning in Nero's garden in Ancient Rome, King Arthur's court, and ending in the 19th Century at the beach where a bevy of bathing beauties do a routine dance number at the beach. Says Adam: "It's a nice century you have here." That's a good sample of the wit.

All of the gags are lame, full of flat one-liners, and the musical interludes are downright dumb. MAXINE DOYLE sings a forgettable tune in a very thin voice that the soundtrack makes sound even tinnier.

The big surprise is that this was 1934, a few years before Warners made THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, their most acclaimed Technicolor feature at that time. The color photography looks fine but the short is weak on wit and the cast fumbles through some bad material.

Adam (Leon Errol) and Eve (June MacCloy) have their leisurely life. Adam is tired of the same food. The snake offers them an apple. They get thrown out of Eden and into later eras. They visit Rome with Emperor Nero, Sir Lancelot fights the Black Knight, and finally at a modern day airfield.

I would like a less balding Adam, but I do really like the couple's sarcastic tone. It's a silly short. It is an early production with the full Technicolor process. The colors are bright and gaudy in the best Technicolor way. I have to give it an extra point for pushing the technical envelope. The short is stupid fun and it never pretends to be anything more. Mostly, it's to showcase all the bright colors.

Good Morning, Eve! (1934)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Warner short is best known for being the second three-strip Technicolor film in history. It has Adam (Leon Errol) and Eve (June MacCloy) eating the forbidden apple and then taking a walk through history where they do a dance and music number with Nero in Rome and King Arthur in England. The main reason to watch this movie is for its beautiful Technicolor, which looks downright amazing. Just take a look at all the leaves covering Adam and Eve's bodies as the green nature of them just leaps off the screen and punches the viewer in the eyes. The colors are so extremely well here that I'd say this might be the best looking color film of the decade. The music numbers are fairly good and overall the film is charming but another big key is the pre-code elements. Seeing Eve in her fig leaves hardly covering any of her body certainly stands out. The mechanical snake in the garden was pretty funny as well.