NFR Project: 'Cabin in the Sky' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “Cabin in the Sky”

Dir: Vincente Minnelli

Scr: Marc Connelly, Lynn Root, Joseph Schrank

Pho: Sidney Wagner

Ed: Harold F. Kress

Premiere: April 9, 1943

98 min.

It is hard to believe that the NAACP signed off on this one. But they did. In fact, they congratulated the filmmakers on their project, stating it “avoided cliches and racial stereotypes.” Yet there is something condescending about this effort. It offers a simplified and hokey vision of the African-American experience.

True, it avoids the worst insults to Blacks that American cinema has imposed – no one acts like an idiot, everyone speaks normal English instead of slavish patois. But the film still treats them as simple-minded folk perpetually poised between the flames of Hell and the Kingdom of Heaven. It is this kind of neglect of reality that makes movies by and for Black people of the era, rare as they were, often fairy tales of damnation and salvation. It fits a very Caucasian-centric vision of Black life that can’t help but come off as tone deaf. It is well-intentioned but fundamentally inept. It wants to be Porgy and Bess (1935), but it isn’t.

The film is an adaptation of a 1940 Broadway production, with music by Vernon Duke, book by Lynn Root, and lyrics by John Tatouche. Ethel Waters killed as the heroine, Petunia; she debuted the hit song “Taking a Chance on Love” there. The powers that be decided to make a film of it, and they brought Waters in to reprise her stage role. (They threw in a few new songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg as well, including the great "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe".)

She is surrounded by some great performers – Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Rex Ingram, Oscar Polk, Bill Bailey, Butterfly McQueen. Hell, there is Louis Armstrong, gleefully playing a little devil! And in the Paradise club, there reigns Duke Ellington and his orchestra. There are also some Black actors who purveyed Black stereotypes on film – Mantan Moreland, Willie Best. (Bill Bailey performs the first “moonwalk” on film as well.)

It’s the story of Little Joe (Anderson) and his wife Petunia (Waters). Little Joe is trying to reform, but he is lured into shooting dice and is seriously wounded by gambler Domino (“Bubbles” John W. Sublett). Lucifer Jr. (Ingram) fights the angelic General (Kenneth Spencer) for Joe’s soul. Joe gets six months to change his ways.

The Devil makes Joe win the lottery, after which he lives high on the hog and starts running around with the devilish Georgia Brown (a very young Lena Horne). Petunia shows up to a fancy nightclub to confront him, then she and Joe are shot down by Domino as a storm she prayed for destroys the club. Joe, redeemed by a repentant, dead Georgia Brown, is allowed into Heaven with Petunia.

After which, Little Joe wakes up – it was all a dream! He vows to mend his ways. Petunia is happy at last.

This was the first directorial effort of Vincente Minelli (Busby Berkeley stepped and directed the musical number “Shine”) – and some of Minelli’s trademarks are already here: the swooping dolly shots, the loving close-ups, the willingness to play with trick photography. It is admirably made, notwithstanding its fundamentally racist message. It proves that Hollywood could sell any kind of ideology that was fed it.

Waters is great as Petunia; Anderson is funny – and proves he can sing! Everyone does a stellar job with the material they were given. Nonetheless, this film was banned in many Southern states, which rejected the idea of a movie with Black performers in the lead roles. Today, Cabin in the Sky represents a tiny step forward and a big step sideways in the saga of Black culture in America.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Gang’s All Here.