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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Magnum Opus of Mantan Moreland,
By Andre M. "brnn64" (Mt. Pleasant, SC United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lucky Ghost [Slim Case] (DVD)
This is perhaps the best surviving film of Mantan Moreland.Our man here stars with his occasional stage and film partner Flournoy (F.E.) Miller in a comical all-black farce from 1941. He and Miller play a couple of bums who, as a result of a lucky crap game early in the film, get big bucks and throw a wild party at a haunted house. Those familiar with the popeyed wonder will note a difference in this from his more mainstream films with Frankie Darro and his Charlie Chan comedy/mysteries. The humor in these early Black films tends to be more sexually charged than mainstream films of the area. Our man trains his oversized eyeballs on one actress' rather fecthing booty and one shot of a hostess pouring champagne focuses on her cleavage. This stuff would not stand the censor's scissors in "white" films of the time. There is also a famous crap shooting sequence (not the one described above, this is later in the film) of our hero going into outlandish convulsions over the dice (this scene occasionally appears in documentaries about stereotyped Black comedies of this era). He of the golf-ball peepers is quite the rascal and runs wild in this film, an illiterate (he signs his name with an X), crap shooting, gal-chasing, ghost-fearing, chicken stealing, buck-dancing machine! President Barack Obama he ain't. Yes, much of this is outrageously stereotyped by modern standards, but the film is so lovingly outlandish and over-the top ridiculous that only the most humorless hardcore, fight-the-power fist in the air pseudo-militant and PC types would get out of joint over this. Leave your brains at the door and it's fun, Fun, FUN! Trust me, it beats "Soul Plane." Unfortuantely, aside from the Charlie Chan and Frankie Darro flix, few of Mantan's best all Black films are known to survive ("Tall Tan & Terrific" from 1946 is not worth watching at all except for our man's antics). Let's hope some more of them are found. This will give you a good belly laugh on a lazy afternoon (especially the last 10 or so minutes-you'll see what I mean)!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Moreland Lucky Ghost,
By Movie Lovers "Hal" (La Crescenta, ca. United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Lucky Ghost [Slim Case] (DVD)
While not the best of his films I have seen, this was still enjoyable to watch.Lucky Ghost [Slim Case]
3.0 out of 5 stars
Amusing, if slight.,
By
This review is from: Lucky Ghost [Slim Case] (DVD)
Lucky Ghost (William Beaudine, 1942)The race comedies of the thirties and forties are an interesting, if somewhat embarrassing, phenomenon in film history; at a time when only folks as big as the Marx Brothers could get black actors into prominent roles in white films (viz. A Day at the Races), black filmmakers and actors simply skirted the usual production system and made their own movies. Needless to say, the race comedy has gone mainstream these days, with directors from Spike Lee to Tyler Perry making money hand over fist from audiences of all colors, but back during World War II, everything about the race comedy was black. Every actor in the movie is black, but more to the point, the entire audience for this film was black. (A few race comedies did gain a wider audience thanks to celebrities appearing in them; Spirit of Youth, which featured heavyweight champ Joe Louis, is an example.) The guys who wrote the script were black. It's entirely possible the entire production crew was black. So how does this movie get a director like William Beaudine? You got me. But then, given that Beaudine directed some three hundred films during his career (IMDB's bio speculates that number may be closer to five hundred), I guess he was bound to make a film in every conceivable subgenre eventually. Plot: Washington (Mantan Moreland, best remembered today for portraying Birmingham Brown in many Charlie Chan films) and Jefferson (F. E. Miller, Moreland's off-and-on straight man) are a couple of roustabouts who are studiously looking for ways to avoid work. Washington has almost preternatural dice skills, which come in very handy when they come across a swank car that's run out of gas. The owner has a thing for craps, so he and Washington get into a game, which ends up with Washington and Jefferson dressed to kill and tooling around in a high-class convertible. They find themselves at a den of iniquity, where the owner (Maceo Scheffield, a stalwart of race films, as well as a writer/director) and his ditzy girlfriend (Florence O'Brien, who would probably have been as popular as Clara Bow in a more integrated film culture) make them for easy marks. But, of course, while the boys have the flash, they don't have the dough... Yes, there are ghosts involved, but not until much later. That would be a spoiler, though I can tell you it makes for some pretty amusing low-budget special effects. If you're sensitive to racial issues, you'll probably feel like you need a shower after this; Moreland was one of those comics who played to racial stereotype wholeheartedly, even in mainstream films (viz. Spider Baby, from 1964), and these days it comes off as somewhat offensive. But guilty as it may make you, there's no denying this is pretty funny stuff, and while the race is always forefront, the situations are universal. In the end, it's not a bad little film at all, though it's forgettable and desperately low-budget. ** ½
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