Just perfect...

Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely Fantastic

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Today, Eddie Cantor is pretty much forgotten--although he was a HUGE star from the 1920s-1950s. He was practically the king of Vaudeville, films and radio--and it's a real shame he doesn't get much recognition today. His singing, dancing and comedic persona were very pleasant and likable--and a few of his films are classics (such as "Forty Little Mothers"). For these reasons alone, it's well worth seeing "Kid Millions". Perhaps a bit of the reason he isn't seen that often might be because he occasionally performed as a minstrel--like he does in "Kid Millions" (uggh!!)! I am not excusing this sort of thing, but it made up a tiny portion of the sort of roles he played in films.The film begins with an Egyptologist dying shortly after he discovered a huge treasure. Lots of folks want to lay claim to it (including Berton Churchill, Warren Hymer and Ethel Merman) but it turns out the guy has a son (Cantor) and he's sent to Egypt to claim his fortune. Can be manage to avoid letter these hucksters and their underhanded efforts to bilk out of his inheritance? And, can he manage to avoid a sheik crazed with killing off the heirs to this fortune? The film is a mixture of good and bad. It's always great to see the multi-talented Cantor. You also get a nice routine by the Nicholas Brothers and the plot is silly fun. The VERY surreal color sequence at the end was pretty amazing--a great treat for film historians. However, be aware that Ann Sothern's singing, to put it mildly, was terrible and the minstrel sequence is so incredibly politically incorrect it might make some folks' head explode! But on balance, the good far, far outweighs the bad and the film is worth seeing.By the way, look carefully and you'll see a few uncredited cameos. You'll see Stymie Beard (with his trademark derby) and Tommy Bond (both of Li'l Rascals fame) and Dickie Jones (the voice of Pinocchio) early on in the movie. And, look carefully, as Lucille Ball and Paulette Goddard as chorus girls! The English comic Charlie Hall (of Laurel & Hardy fame), Tor Johnson (of Ed Wood fame) as well as Dennis O'Keefe. Rarely have I ever seen a film with so many cameos by folks before they were stars and it's a cinemaniac's delight watching for these folks. Heck, there's even a small uncredited role for Barbara Pepper--the lady who played Mrs. Zipfel on "Green Acres"!

Eddie Cantor's comedies, when they appear, usually still amuse the modern audiences that watch them. The only thing that jars is his use of black-face which crops up in his films - but while not liked by African-Americans it is less jarring with Cantor's films than with his contemporary Al Jolson. Jolson's use of black face in singing mingled his biggest asset (that melodious bleat of his voice) with a racial insult. But Cantor's use of the black face was not as overpowering as Jolson's - Cantor only would do one number in a film in black-face. His main persona was a cowardly or timid schlemiel who sang frequently without racist make-up on. Jolson could do it too, of course (most notably in HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM), but usually he is fully willing to "black himself" up before his biggest numbers. It really was not all that necessary to Cantor's work.In KID MILLIONS Eddie is the son of an archaeologist (his photo shows Cantor in pith helmet and side whiskers) who found a great treasure in Egypt before he died. The deceased was not a nice guy, and there are a number of people who feel they should be his legal heir. Besides Eddie (his son), there is his girlfriend (Ethel Merman - assisted by her other boyfriend Warren Hymer), there is a southern con-man who may have raised some funds for the Professor's last expedition (Burton Churchill), the con-man's daughter (Ann Southern), and a representative of a learned society that did back the expedition (George Murphy). All of them head for Egypt to get the treasure, but it is actually still in the hands of the Egyptian sheik (Paul Harvey) who considered the Professor an infidel (some things never change). The interplay of the characters in the story make it so amusing. Besides Cantor's combination of fear and determination to get the treasure, he has to fend off his rivals (in particular Merman and Hymer). Southern and Murphy slowly find themselves falling in love. And Cantor finds he has picked up a lover too (Eva Sully, the Jewish sounding daughter of the Sheikh). As Eddie says in the tune, "Okay Toots", "I like the sheik and his silly daughter, but I prefer her under water!" and proceeds to push the girl into a pool. The humor is clever at times. While talking on the boat to Egypt, Hymer and Churchill lose track of each other's conversation: Churchill is mentioning his neighbors in Virginia. Hymer, getting momentarily sidetracked mentions a neighbor of his with a name like Birnbaum or Schwartz. Without losing a beat, Churchill says, "One of the finest families of the South", leaving one with the image of an old first family of Virginia with a Jewish name. Hymer is certainly surprised.Despite the use of black face in the big musical number "Mandy" (and only Cantor puts it on), the film is pretty amusing as an entertainment. I can give it only a "7" because of the racist content of that sequence, but otherwise I think that it would be acceptable to an audience.

In the early 1930's Eddie Cantor was one of the biggest stars in the world, and "Kid Millions" will show you why. Cantor was energetic, wry, occasionally cutting (without heaping on the cruelty), sweet, and just plain funny, and it's a shame that most people today don't have the faintest idea of who he was. But then, that's increasingly true of Groucho, too. What to do with such a world?"Kid Millions" has lots of incidental pleasures, including the presence of the ridiculously young Nicholas Brothers, Ann Sothern, and Ethel Merman (who once again proves why she was just too "big," even for grandly produced spectacles like this one). Perhaps most interesting, from a film-history perspective, is the elaborate "Ice Cream Factory" sequence, which was shot in still-experimental 3-strip Technicolor. The earlier (2-strip) Technicolor could only render shades of cyan and magenta (often mistaken today for fading), while the new process was explosively full-spectrum. Audiences at the time must have been astonished.

KID MILLIONS (Samuel Goldwyn, 1934), directed by Roy Del Ruth, marks the fifth collaboration of the Samuel Goldwyn/Eddie Cantor annual productions, and another winner to their collection of musical comedies from the Depression-era 1930s, and the most lavish and entertaining thus far.The story begins in New York City where a naive, good-natured Brooklyn schnook named Edward Grant Wilson Jr. (Eddie Cantor), a Cinderfella-type of a guy living by the waterfront with his rough-and-tough step-brothers (Edgar Kennedy, Stanley Fields and Jack Kelly), who take pride in "stepping" on their little Eddie when the mood conveniently suits them. Eddie, who sings to the neighborhood kids, is comforted by his steady girlfriend named (Doris Davenport). When news breaks out that Eddie's archaeologist father has died and left him his entire fortune of $77 million, Eddie soon finds himself the center of attention and treated like royalty by his stepbrothers. At the advice of his attorneys, Eddie sets sail on board the S.S. Luxor bound for Egypt, later to be accompanied by his lawyer friend, Jerry Lane (George Murphy) in Gibrartar, to claim his fortune. Also on board ship are Dot Clark (Ethel Merman), a Broadway songplugger, and her gangster stooge, Louie the Lug (Warren Hymer), posing as Eddie's long lost mother and uncle, trying to get him to sign a document over to them, failing at all costs; and Colonel Harry Larrabee (Berton Churchill), a Southerner gentleman from Virginia who had financed the original expedition for Eddie's father and now wants his cut of the money. He invites his attractive niece, Joan (Ann Sothern), unaware of her uncle's scheme, to keep Jerry occupied while the Colonel works on Eddie. After porting in Alexandria, Eddie encounters a sheik's (Paul Harvey) daffy daughter, Fanya (Eve Sully), and her jealous beau, Ben Ali (Jesse Block), later to be surrounded by the Sheik's beautiful harem girls. Eddie prances among the Pyramids seeking his inheritance while the others try to disinherit him by claiming that they are the rightful heirs, almost causing Eddie to become the human sacrifice and those associated with him.As silly as this sounds in print, including one particular scene where the 19-year-old Dot (Merman) tries to convince the 25-year-old Eddie she's is his mother, KID MILLIONS succeeds at all costs. That same scene in which Mama Merman tells "Uncle" Louie to give Eddie a kiss is something of a surprise as to how THAT got by the censors. Eve Sully (in her movie debut), part of the comedy team of Sully and Block, practically steals every comic moment from her leading performers, particularly with her distinctive voice and Gracie Allen-type mannerisms. A pity she never worked in further features or comedy shorts. KID MILLIONS also offers a glimpse of the youthful Ann Sothern (quite slim and trim) and Ethel Merman in her flare of sassy comedy. Aside from funny business, KID MILLIONS takes time out for songs, good songs, compliments of composers Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn, Harold Adamson and Harold Lane, with choreography by Seymour Felix, including: "An Earful of Music" (sung by Ethel Merman); "When My Ship Comes In" (sung by Eddie Cantor); "Your Head on My Shoulder" (sung by Ann Sothern and George Murphy); THE SHIP'S CONCERT MINSTREL SHOW: "An Earful of Music" (briefly sung by Merman); "I Want to Be a Minstrel Man" (sung by Harold Nicholas and Goldwyn Girls); "Mandy" (by IRVING BERLIN, sung by Eddie Cantor in black-face, Ethel Merman, Ann Sothern, George Murphy and Goldwyn Girls); "Your Head on My Shoulder" (sung by Murphy and Sothern); "Mandy" (reprise by Cantor, Sothern and Murphy), followed and concluded by a dance number highlight by The Nicholas Brothers; "Okay, Toots" (sung by Eddie Cantor); "Ice Cream Fantasy" (sung by Ethel Merman, Eddie Cantor and children) and "When My Ship Comes In" (sung by Eddie Cantor). The elaborate finale of THE ICE CREAM FANTASY, photographed in Technicolor, is something that would have made Walt Disney proud. While all the songs are tuneful, with "Mandy" being the best known of the bunch, the others are not as well known. The solo number featuring The Nicholas Brothers, then young boys, easily displays their unique talents as first rate performers with a once in a lifetime dancing style that has yet to be equaled or surpassed by anyone. Thank goodness for the likes of the Nicholas Brothers in demonstrating the kind of entertainment, long missing in today's world of movie making, that will never go out of fashion and continue to delight for as long as their films continue to be shown.Also seen in the supporting cast are Stymie Beard and Tommy Bond (familiar faces of the "Our Gang" comedy shorts); Henry Kolker as an attorney; and Jack Kennedy. Avid film buffs will delight in trying to spot a young blonde Lucille Ball as one of the Goldwyn Girls, noticeably in the "Mandy" and "Okay Toots" numbers. Barbara Pepper, another TV veteran (Doris Ziffel in GREEN ACRES in the 1960s), also taking part as a Goldwyn Girl.KID MILLIONS, along with ROMAN SCANDALS (1933), are two musical comedies to have survived the longest on video cassette display, while other Cantor/Goldwyn musicals have been discontinued. Aside from being common place in late night presentation on commercial television in the 1960s and '70s, KID MILLIONS had aired on numerous cable channels in the 1980s, ranging from Arts & Entertainment, the Family Channel, Turner Network Television, and finally on American Movie Classics from 1992 to 1998. It's a million dollar production that has become a million dollar movie of 90 minute screen entertainment. (***1/2)