Customer Reviews

Eddie Cantor: Special Delivery

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Finally! After almost 80 years here is the Cantor you've been waiting for! The silent film is now digitally mastered from the only known print with a wonderful musical background score by the late Broadway composer, Arthur Siegel. This hour long feature also stars William Powell and the gorgeous Jobyna Ralston! It can also be revealed that the talented director, William Goodrich, is in actuality the legendary comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle!

EXTRAS! Joe's Blue Front aka Belt In the Back from the 1929 feature GLORIFYING THE AMERICAN GIRL. See Eddie in the hysterical tailor shop scene from his vaudeville days!

GETTING A TICKET (1929) is a rare short that features Cantor doing a vaudeville sketch & singing his wonderful Victor recording of "My Wife Is On a Diet."

INSURANCE (1930) is Cantor's final short based on another vaudeville sketch involving a visit to the doctor. Hear Cantor sing the never before recorded song "Now That the Girls Are Wearing Long Dresses."

PHOTO GALLERY! Hear Cantor impersonator, Rick Rogers, recall (in Cantor's own words!) the making of SPECIAL DELIVERY while looking at rare stills.

Lower your expectations, and you should love Eddie Cantor's enjoyable B&W (not color) silent comedy, SPECIAL DELIVERY (1927). Lost for almost eighty years and digitally mastered from the only known print in the world, this is a fun film with Eddie as a hopelessly inept, but always optimistic and friendly postman. He falls in love with waitress Jobyna "Joby" Ralston (who wouldn't?), who becomes the secretary to con man William Powell (at the start of a magnificent career). Directed by Roscoe Arbuckle under his "William Goodrich" pseudonym, this 59 minute film looks very good and has a lovely score by the late Arthur Siegel.

Bonuses on this Big House Production DVD include Cantor impersonator Rick Rogers reading from Eddie's autobiography about the making of SPECIAL DELIVERY; the hilarious tailor shop scene with Cantor from the early talkie GLORIFYING THE AMERICAN GIRL (1929); and two early sound vaudeville shorts, GETTING A TICKET (1929) and INSURANCE (1930). The whole program, including SPECIAL DELIVERY, lasts about two hours. This DVD will be very nostalgic for those who remember Eddie Cantor. It comes with a regular mail and e-mail address for the Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society. And a younger generation may laugh a lot at SPECIAL DELIVERY also.

Just a quickie comment: The soundtrack to Special Delivery is approximately 4 seconds ahead of the movie, so you hear Cantor blow his whistle and four seconds later you see him put it to his mouth.

I am constantly amazed at the carelessness of these stupid people who put out these silent films. When they do get a decent soundtrack, they can't even bother to synchronize it up to the picture. Shameful, unforgiveable and unbelievable.

If you don't mind a ruined soundtrack, OR if you don't mind using Final Cut to sync up the sound, this is a very entertaining movie.