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  Palmy Days (United Artists, 1931), directed
by Edward Sutherland, became Samuel Goldwyn's second annual
Eddie Cantor
production, and another laugh fest with dance numbers and smiling chorines,
compliments from choreographer, Busby Berkeley. This being the shortest Cantor
musical in the Goldwyn series (77 minutes), it also consists of the least amount
of songs (a total of three), plus a handful of funny dialogue as well as some
violent physical comedy that would be considered something of a throwback during
the Mack Sennett silent comedy days.
In this venture, Eddie Cantor plays Eddie Simpson, a nervous little man (as he
was in his initial Goldwyn musical, Whoopee (1930), this time singing
whenever he becomes excited), who becomes an unwitting assistant to Yolando
(Charles Middleton), a phony spiritualist. Helen Martin (Charlotte
Greenwood), a single woman in search of a husband, who manages a gymnasium,
regularly attends Yolando's séances. Merry mix-ups follow when Helen
mistakes Eddie for her future husband, while Eddie is mistaken for the predicted
efficiency expert by Yolando's gullible but millionaire client, A.B. Clark
(Spencer Charters), owner of a gigantic bakery business. Eddie becomes
interested with Clark's doll-faced daughter, Joan (Barbara Weeks), whom he
believes is in love with him, but she is really interested in Steve Clayton
(Paul Page). Because Eddie stands in the way of Yolando's corrupt scheme
to rob Clark of his $25,000, he hires two thugs, Joe (George Raft) and Plug
Moynihan (Harry Woods) to do away with him, but Eddie has his own problems being
pursued by the man-chasing Miss Martin, who won't take no for an answer from her
"Romeo."
The musical numbers for Palmy Days include: "Bend Down Sister" by
Ballard MacDonald and Con Conrad (sung by
Charlotte Greenwood and Goldwyn
girls); "There's Nothing Too Good For My Baby" by Benny Davis, Harry Akst
and Eddie Cantor (sung by
Eddie Cantor in blackface);
"My Honey Said Yes, Yes"
by Cliff Friend (sung by Cantor/ performed by Goldwyn Girls); and "My Honey
Said Yes, Yes" (finale reprise by Cantor and Greenwood). If the "My Honey
Said Yes, Yes" score sounds familiar, it was later used for the 1981 Steve
Martin musical, Pennies From Heaven.
_NRFPT_01_small.jpg) Aside from two production numbers with the
Busby Berkeley overhead camera shots
and kaleidoscopic routines, trademarks that would make him famous, Palmy Days
features several very funny comedy routines, including Greenwood giving Cantor a
workout in the gymnasium, even at one point having him twisted in pretzel
fashion like a contortionist; being offered a medicine ball with Cantor feeling
it too big to swallow; and later being pursued by gangsters (Raft and Woods),
hiding out into the company gym locker room while the girls prepare to take
their daily swim, thus having Eddie disguising himself as one of the girls
(looking almost amazingly like
Jack Lemmon's cross-dressing character in the
1959 comedy classic,
Some Like it Hot), and being forced to strip by
Helen Martin for a shower and a dip into the pool. (Watch Eddie get himself out
of that!). The movie is highlighted with a comedic chase in the Clark
bakery involving Eddie, Helen, Yolando and his gang over the $25,000, which is
hidden in the dough of bread. The one brief scene in which Eddie tries to show
off his operation to Mr. Clark (Spencer Charters), is a little inside humor
lifted from their comedy routine in Whoopee. And let's not overlook a
line uttered by Cantor during a séance early in the story, "There is a
Minneapolis in heaven, just as there is a St. Paul."
The chemistry between
Eddie Cantor and
Charlotte Greenwood is priceless. It's a
pity they didn't do another movie together. In recent years, Palmy Days
enjoyed some frequent cable television revivals briefly on Turner Network
Television (TNT) in the early 1990s, the Nostalgia Channel, and on American
Movie Classics during the season of 1992-93. It was distributed on video
cassette, and one of the six package set of Cantor/Goldwyn musicals, but has
since been discontinued, with the exception of Roman Scandals (1933) and
Kid Millions (1934) which continued in
video sale distribution for several years thereafter.
Palmy Days would not rank as the American Film Institute's top 100
comedies of the twentieth century, but it's worth viewing, particularly due to
Cantor's buffoonery that at times predates the 1960's comedies of
Jerry Lewis,
but not to the extreme, and/or spotting some future film stars as
George Raft
(in a small role); watching the villainous
Charles Middleton, five years before
achieving fame as Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon chaptered
serials for Universal in 1936; and
Betty Grable and
Virginia Bruce, recognizable
and visible in the opening dance routines. |
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