Whoopee!

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Whoopee poster.jpg

Whoopee! is a 1930 comedy film created by Florenz Ziegfeld, Samuel Goldwyn. Directed by Thornton Freeland and released October 5, 1930. Eddie Cantor, Ethel Shutta, Paul Gregory, and Eleanor Hunt star in this film directed by Thornton Freeland and released on October 5, 1930. It was shot in Technicolor in two colors. Its plot is based on Florenz Ziegfeld's 1928 Broadway production.[1]

Whoopee was part of a wave of “all-singing, all-dancing” musicals that hit the U.S. with the advent of talking pictures.

Plot

Sally Morgan has long been in love with Wanenis, an Indian who lives near her father's ranch, but her father has persuaded her to marry Sheriff Bob Wells while Wanenis is away learning white man's ways. Sally, who hopes to persuade Wanenis to elope with her, convinces Henry Williams (Eddie Cantor), a kind-hearted hypochondriac who lives on the ranch, to drive her away in his ramshackle Ford. Sally and Henry run out of gas while being pursued by her father and Wells, so they rob gas from a car belonging to Jerome Underwood, whose ranch they later visit for food. When Wells and his deputies arrive at the ranch, Henry, who is now working as a chef, wears blackface to conceal his identity. He somehow manages to elude the sheriff and seeks shelter on an Indian reservation. Wanenis has betrayed white society, thinking that his race prevents him from loving Sally, and Sally is about to be abducted by her father when Matafay, an Indian woman who is to marry Wanenis, causes Chief Black Eagle to discover the truth: Wanenis was the orphaned baby son of a white couple who died. Sally's father now agrees to the engagement, and Henry proposes to Mary Custer, his faithful nurse.[2]

Whoopee.jpg

Blackface

The Museum of Modern Art in New York had recently found a print of the film in a Czech film archive and will be working on a revival and future re-issue, according to a 2 Jul 1971 DV post. According to the source, a print of the film was stored in a Berlin archive, but when Russian troops took hold of that part of the city in 1945, they seized the archive and used the Ferrania color process to move the original nitrate print onto safety stock. When the film was resurrected for a Los Angeles screening in 1977, the racist prejudices, including Cantor's scene in blackface, were denounced, according to news reports.[3]

From the outset, blackface displays were considered offensive. For decades, civil rights groups have publicly criticized blackface, claiming that it dehumanizes black people by introducing and reinforcing ethnic prejudices.[4]

Awards

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction by Richard Day.

External Link

Whoopee! at IMDb
Watch Makin' Whoopee song performed by Eddie Cantor at Youtube

References

  1. Whoopee!. Retrieved December 29, 2020.(film)
  2. Whoopee!, Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  3. WHOOPEE!, AFI Catalog. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  4. Holland, Jesse J. AP Explains: Racist history of blackface began in the 1830s, komonews.com, 6 February 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2020.