Hollywood during the Depression: Hallelujah I'm a bum
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
7:30pm $5 at the door
Hallelulah I'm a bum
Portage Theater
4050 N Milwaukee Ave,
chicago, IL 60600
Click here for location info
HALLELUJAH I’M A BUM
Directed by Lewis Milestone • 1933
Also known as Happy Go Lucky, Lazy Bones, and The Heart of New York this Rogers and Hart semi-musical takes
its original US title from a popular 1908 folk song of sarcastic protest to upper class moralizing of the homeless.
Al Jolson (in one of his few non-blackface roles, also his most enjoyable) plays a tramp who falls in love with
the girlfriend of an old acquaintance who happens to be the mayor of New York (played by Frank Morgan). Harry
Langdon and Edgar Connor are Jolson’s compatriots Egghead and Acorn who remind him that he’ll never leave
Central Park. Highly thought of today, most of the original reviews were ambivalent (perhaps the film’s rhyming
couplets were too much, too soon...), but the New York Times had the benefit of taking the film at face value: “It
is really a sort of tramp's dream. Sometimes the characters converse in rhyme and on other occasions they sing
their opinions. Even Mayor Hastings, presumably of New York, played by Mr. Morgan, is inspired to regale his
subordinates with doggerel.” (JA)
82 • United Artists & Fox Film Corporation • 35mm from the Library of Congress, permission Samuel Goldwyn
http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/calendar/archives/classic/2012-april-august/
About the artists:
Hallelulah I'm a bum
HALLELUJAH I’M A BUM
Directed by Lewis Milestone • 1933
Also known as Happy Go Lucky, Lazy Bones, and The Heart of New York this Rogers and Hart semi-musical takes
its original US title from a popular 1908 folk song of sarcastic protest to upper class moralizing of the homeless.
Al Jolson (in one of his few non-blackface roles, also his most enjoyable) plays a tramp who falls in love with
the girlfriend of an old acquaintance who happens to be the mayor of New York (played by Frank Morgan). Harry
Langdon and Edgar Connor are Jolson’s compatriots Egghead and Acorn who remind him that he’ll never leave
Central Park. Highly thought of today, most of the original reviews were ambivalent (perhaps the film’s rhyming
couplets were too much, too soon...), but the New York Times had the benefit of taking the film at face value: “It
is really a sort of tramp's dream. Sometimes the characters converse in rhyme and on other occasions they sing
their opinions. Even Mayor Hastings, presumably of New York, played by Mr. Morgan, is inspired to regale his
subordinates with doggerel.” (JA)
82 • United Artists & Fox Film Corporation • 35mm from the Library of Congress, permission Samuel Goldwyn
