Strike Me Pink

Strike Me Pink has Eddie Cantor playing his usual schnook against the world character with the background of an amusement park.

Eddie runs a store near a college and he's constantly being bullied and would have been intimidated out of business but for perennial student Gordon Jones. Jones keeps the bullies at bay while Eddie learns some assertiveness training. When he graduates finally due to some help from Eddie the plan is for the two of them to go and run the amusement park his mom owns.

She's being bullied herself by some gangsters headed by Brian Donlevy who want to put slot machines in the park. Eddie's assertiveness training pays off albeit in some unusual ways.

Strike Me Pink is vintage Eddie Cantor when he was probably at the height of his popularity. He would be departing from Sam Goldwyn after this film and never was really showcased properly for film after his Goldwyn days were over. View some of Cantor's Goldwyn films next to what Danny Kaye later did and you can see the influence Cantor had on Kaye's style.

Ethel Merman plays the vamp for the second and last time with Eddie Cantor. She also was never better on screen than when paired with Cantor by Goldwyn. She was cast ironically by Cantor's daughter Marilyn who was a fan of her's after seeing her on Broadway and lobbied with Goldwyn. Marilyn was an adolescent at the time, but Goldwyn agreed with her and Merman was in Kid Millions and then Strike Me Pink. They have a really nice duet together in Calabash Pipe.

Cantor brought over some of his radio family for this film in the persons of Harry Einstein as the befuddled Greek, Parkyakarkus and Sidney Fields. Yes, that is the same harried landlord of Abbott and Costello in the Fifties. Fields was an old vaudeville pal of Cantor's who brought him out of that dying institution and put him on radio in front of the mike and also as a writer. With Gordon Jones who was Mike the Cop on Abbott and Costello that makes two A&C regulars in this film.

The chase scene through the amusement is the climax and according to a recent biography of Cantor, two stuntmen doubles suffered broken legs during the filming of that dangerous sequence. All to obtain a phonograph record where the bad guys have confessed their evil deeds.

If you want to see one of America's funniest men at the height of his popularity by all means catch Strike Me Pink when it is broadcast next.

I usually like Eddie Cantor. And this has an agreeable supporting cast. But I found this a chore. Yes, the Dreamland amusement park is appealing. And it has some wonderful Harold Arlen songs. I love the one he and Ethel Merman sing about retiring to a farm. What a funny image that conjures up!

Merman is believable as a nightclub singer. But she isn't believable as a heartthrob. The dancing is fine but I found it hard not to compare it to the Warner's Berekely movies. And in comparison, it does not fare well.

Cantor's movies often have a strange charm. They're goofy but lovable. This one works way too hard. The final sequence seemed inept. I kept thinking how fabulous it would have been with Buster Keaton. Or with Harold Lloyd. With Cantor, it was as light as a cement cream puff.

Several numbers in the film are worth a look just because of the clear influence of Busby Berkeley. The numbers show sophistication and modernist sensibility very different from the tone and style of the rest of the material, and very Berkelesque. In the "High and Low" number,for example, filmed mostly in closeups, Merman's white skin is strongly silhouetted against her very black costume, which itself blends into the black background. Its a chiaroscuro effect highly reminiscent of Winnie Shaw's "Lullaby of Broadway" number in Gold Diggers of 1933.

Later, in "Shake Me Off With Rhythm", the shiny dance floor reflects the dancers so completely that a reflection begins to dance on its own, itself a reminder of Bojangles by Fred Astaire in Swingtime, which was released in the same year. At another point, dancers intertwine so that their one's arm become the other's legs and it becomes difficult to distinguish them, their intertwined bodies still reflected by the shiny floor in a very modernist composition. It all feels like Busby, off center, inventive, playful. Worth a look.

If you have not seen "Whoopee!" or "Palmy Days" or "Kid Millions" or "Roman Scandals" or "The Kid from Spain", you may think that "Strike Me Pink" is a pretty funny comedy. However, compared to the films mentioned above, it just doesn't make it. Instead of writing for his usual "frightened and nervous little man" persona, Cantor is given a script which would be better suited to Harold Lloyd. The musical numbers, though serviceable, are not even close to the great songs introduced in the previous pictures. Casting Ethel Merman, so perfect in "Kid Millions", as the romantic lead was a total mistake. Parkyakarkus and Bill Frawley are descent comic foils for Cantor, but somehow it all seems a little contrived. If you have seen the other films Cantor made for Goldwyn, this one may be a little disappointing. Don't get me wrong! There are some funny bits in the film. It's certainly not a total disaster, but compared to the films which came before it, it leaves much to be desired.

EDDIE CANTOR was one of the most talented comedian/singers in Hollywood who never really got his due in films--except for a wonderful turn as lookalikes in THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS ('43). And ETHEL MERMAN is a great brassy singer from Broadway who never got her big chance in films either, except for CALL ME MADAM.

They don't really get their big chance here, either. It's an antiquated musical even though there is some great talent behind the scenes, as can be noted in the screen credits.

Cantor is the typical nerd, a tailor being bullied by college guys and rescued occasionally by his pal "Butch" (GORDON JONES). Cantor is being ribbed all the time for his crush on night-club singer ETHEL MERMAN, whose photos are posted all over his shop. He plays the sort of character that would inevitably fall to the Harold Lloyds and Danny Kayes of the show biz world--or, for that matter, Bob Hope who specialized in being a cowardly foil for the villainous thugs.

A young BRIAN DONLEVY has an early role as one of the thugs who wants to put one over on Cantor by placing slot machines in "Dreamland" park, with Cantor as current owner who has to get his courage from a book and phonograph record on "Man or Mouse?" A funny scene has him working his spell on tough guy ED BROPHY to the strains of "Dance of the Hours".

SALLY EILERS is the pretty secretary trying to give Cantor some backbone. It's the sort of role Virginia Mayo would later play in Danny Kaye films.

Some of the humor is rather forced and it's all kind of corny, but fun to watch as Cantor gets himself into one situation after another as he confronts the bad guys. Ethel Merman shows up for a couple of so-so song numbers but most of the time she's absent from the scene--and her few songs are not exactly memorable.

On the credit side, the musical sequences include some well choreographed song and dance numbers featuring The Goldwyn Girls, particularly one called "The Lady Dances". But the highlight of the film is the spectacular "Dreamland" chase that has all of the slapstick quality of the great silent chases, inspired by the Buster Keaton-Charlie Chaplin crowd of comics.

Summing up: Will appeal mostly to the admirers of Eddie Cantor's style as the comic foil for villains--and for anyone curious at an early glimpse of Merman.