Maid for a Day

Times have certainly changed and today much of what's in older films is seen as politically incorrect and insulting. Often, I think folks make too much out of this, as you cannot censor a film just because of a bit of offensive content. However, in the case of "Maid for a Day", I could certainly understand someone feeling irritated with it....and if their heads exploded while they watched!

The offensive part involves a flashback where you see a stage production. The actors are all white and playing black characters but the REALLY offensive part is the curtain...complete with giant stereotypical black men with watermelons on it! Yep....it is pretty nasty!

So is the short still worth seeing? Well, first, if you cannot look past the offensive start of the film, probably not (and I'd hate to hear about your brain exploding!). And second, well, the short is pretty crappy otherwise. Like many Vitaphone shorts, the plot is scant and it's mostly a review of songs and dance numbers. Some of them are very good (the bizarre cigarette dance was actually very good) and some (the godawful impersonations) were not. Overall, view at your own risk....and if you skip it, you won't be missing much.

For those who remember Peter and his wife Mary Healy, it's interesting to see Peter so young and performing with his mother. The acts in this short are very strange. The black face number has big pictures on the curtain of blacks eating watermelon slices and the song is about a wandering husband on old man river--nothing complementary. There is a novelty tap dance number that features a long string of cigarettes produced by the fellow to a song about smoking lovers. And the act with Peter and his mother is no less odd. I have trouble describing it so see for yourself. I guarantee it's unique. His mother has a lovely voice but doesn't act to the same standard. Peter's talents on display are comedic rather than musical. The plot was really just to string the musical acts together. On the whole, this is one of the more eccentric shorts I've ever seen. In many ways, I found it unpleasant and hard to watch but I'm glad I stuck with it to the end.

Freddy Hayden (Peter Lind Hayes) is rehearsing for the stage. His college friends are laughing at him. He tells them about his mother, Grace Hayden (real life mother Grace Hayes). She's a stage actress pretending to be a maid for the experience.

This one hits you right in the face with the black-face. I wonder where those stage curtains are now. This is definitely another era. To top off the modern inappropriateness, they do a song and dance praising smoking. The mother-son pairing is interesting although I don't know these actors. I expect more plot with the maid story. Instead, this spends most of it time dancing and singing. There is one interesting dance. I just can't get over the black-face.

It is a variety act of singing and dancing. There is a great tap dancing scene a little over 10 minutes in while the song "two cigarettes in the dark" is being played. The classic dance following is fantastic, and "Won't You Ring The Gong For Me" knocks it out of the park. Great movie!

With a song title that, you can imagine the quality of this Vitaphone Brevity (20 minutes or so) that was filler during the mid-30s, a satire about a show biz mom who wants her son to take college seriously and forget about his own show biz aspirations.

Real mother and son (Grace Hayes and Peter Lind Hayes) manage not to embarrass themselves too much with the lame script, wise-cracks and musical direction. It's all strictly '30s vintage material with Peter demonstrating his talent for impersonations which he would go on to use in his later TV and movie career.

What's interesting are the few musical segments which are tolerable despite the poor songs, but because the staging at least shows a little imagination.

Not the worst Vitaphone Brevity, that's for sure, but nothing memorable about it either.