E o Espetáculo Continua

The copy I saw of "Show Business" was very flawed and I hope you can find a better one than the one on YouTube. The picture was scratchy, the sound tinny and whoever posted it stuck a giant watermark across the screen! Even worse is that they removed a blackface segment because it might offend. I personally hate censorship and wish they'd instead given a prologue discussing this scene instead of just removing it.

The story is about the burlesque singing and dancing team of Eddie and George (Eddie Cantor and George Murphy). Soon they meet up with Joan and Nancy (Joan Davis and Nancy Kelly) and they are so good they're able to move up to vaudeville. Things are just fine until George and Nancy marry. On the day their daughter is born, a STUPID misunderstanding tears them apart and the rest of the film is predictable....as years pass, you know eventually they'll get back together.

A serious problem for me was that I didn't care about George and Nancy. Their histrionics really took away from what I loved.... Eddie and Joan. They were wonderful together....just like they'd been in previous films. In hindsight, I really wish they film had just been about them and the other two written out of the picture. Worth seeing despite this...but not exactly a must-see picture.

SHOW BUSINESS (what an imaginative title) is a look back at the heyday of vaudeville, with nods to its antecedent, burlesque. When this was made in 1944, vaudeville wasn't that long gone, so I suspect a lot of the original audience must have found the movie a strong nostalgia pull. Eddie Cantor and George Murphy play two vaudevillians hooked up with a pair of female vaudevillians played by Joan Davis and Constance Moore. They perform classic number after classic number in a virtually plot-free movie. Cantor of course is marvelous, if a little long in the tooth for the role. Murphy and Davis, both pretty young at the time, hold their own. Only Moore seems out of place, although she does her best. Musical numbers\include "It Had to Be You" and the Al Jolson classic, "Dinah." A blackface number comes as a shock to these 21st century eyes, but what are you gonna do? Cut it out? I am sure it was in years past, but the number is integral to the proceedings and entertaining without being overtly offensive. It reminds the viewer of vaudeville's deepest roots, the minstrel shows of centuries past.

And wit like you would never see nowadays.

The story of a four person act, two men Eddie Martin (Eddie Cantor) and George Doane (George Murphy) and two women Joan Mason (Joan Davis) and Constance Ford (Constance Moore) (lot of thought evidently went into those names), their lives, their loves, their highs, their lows and some very entertaining performances. Particularly from Joan Davis who gets all the fabulous one-liners.

There a some classic songs in there too, "Making Whoopee" and "It Had To Be You." All in all, a very entertaining way to spend a slow Saturday afternoon.

Another Leslie Halliwell favourite, this period musical follows the pattern of several others of its ilk – the career from obscurity to popularity, hitting the skids and the climb back to the top of a burlesque/vaudeville troupe (apparently, the former is deemed a low- grade art form and despised by the latter, but there is little to differentiate them in this film and elsewhere!). Incidentally, co-star George Murphy – whom the fall from grace hits the hardest here – had also featured in the very similar (also comparable quality-wise) FOR ME AND MY GAL (1942), where it was Gene Kelly who got on the wrong end of fame and fortune.

The movie under review was actually instigated by comedian Eddie Cantor (who personally produced it): he had had a successful run of star vehicles with Samuel Goldwyn in the 1930s, followed by a couple of well- regarded efforts for other studios later on – Warners' star-studded THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS (1943) and this one, made over at RKO (its success even prompted a sequel, named after one of Cantor's best-known tunes i.e. IF YOU KNEW SUSIE {1948}). There is actually an autobiographical element to SHOW BUSINESS, since the character he plays obtains his greatest hit with Cantor's very own "Makin' Whoopee" (which inspired his 1930 star vehicle)! Also on hand is comedienne Joan Davis, whose initial disdain for Cantor grows into a true and almost protective love – frequently breaking the fourth wall to assure the viewer that she cannot help herself; their Cleopatra routine is a hoot!

The film encompasses comedy, songs (notably the standard "It Had To Be You", sung – either alternately or concurrently – by Murphy and love interest Nancy Kelly), romance (the latter broken up by his former partner, in both senses of the word) and nostalgia and, while neither the classic Halliwell deems it to be (conversely, Leonard Maltin rated it a more modest **1/2) nor Cantor's most representative work (that would be ROMAN SCANDALS {1933}), there is no doubt that it offers solid entertainment throughout and, as stated in an after-credits title-card, was conceived primarily as wartime escapism for American audiences, be they at home or abroad fighting.

We have a musical that starts well but then fades until you are finally glad that it has come to an end. The cast are fine when it comes to singing and dancing especially in the first half of the film – some great songs and sequences. However, the lead character as played by George Murphy isn't nice to his girlfriend Nancy Kelly from the start and so the audience aren't really on his side from the beginning. In fact, none of the relationships make sense – his other alliance with Constance Moore is totally confusing. She divorces him, then wants him back – it never makes sense. The film suffers because it chooses to follow this unrealistic love triangle story that would just never be there. Eddie Cantor and Joan Davis provide the comedy partnership and deliver their lines well, but you have to be a Cantor fan to enjoy his schtick.

There are moments of humour and good songs but why perform "It Had to Be You" three times? It was good on the first occasion but then becomes corny. The film gets boring, I'm sad to say.