Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great music, great cast, Ethel Waters at her best, February 21, 2000
This is a delightful film. The Broadway score, already one of the finer scores for its time, with the classics "Taking a chance on love" and "Cabin in the sky", was further improved with the addition of "Happiness is just a thing called Joe". There are several other wonderful numbers, including the Duke Ellington number with some great dancing, and "Bubbles" singing "Shine". The cast was the finest black talent of the day, and the movie demonstrates why Ethel Waters was considered the greatest singer and entertainer of her day. In this movie, she also demonstrates that she is a fine actress and a fine dancer. It's a pity that the racial climate of the time didn't allow her more films - she's as magical on screen as she was, by all reports, in person. The remainder of the cast includes a stunning young Lena Horne, surely one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on screen, and who is here allowed to be smolderingly sexy, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, who's an endearing Little Joe, Rex Ingram as Lucifer Jr, and smaller but memorable appearances by Louis Armstrong, Butterfly McQueen, and "Bubbles" of Buck and Bubbles. Seeing Waters sing "Taking a chance on love", "cabin in the sky", "Happiness is just a thing called Joe" and her wicked reprise of "Honey in the honeycomb", complete with some dance steps that will floor you, is more than enough to recommend the movie, but all performances are delightful, and the songs and background music are great. If we take it as a "fable", as we are counseled to do at the beginning, then I don't see it as a racist or dated film. The characters are almost all well delineated and believable within the "fable" context, and are no more stereotypical in this context than numerous films of white people at the time that were also fantasies.It's a pleasure to watch from beginning to end - clearly a timeless classic, especially valuable for archiving for all time the classic Waters performance and the superb acting, singing, dancing and comedic skills of some of the greatest black talent pre-World War II.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Musical Morality Tale, August 10, 2005
Ethel Waters repeated her Broadway role of Petunia Jackson, a woman who fervently prays for her husband to mend his gambling ways for the screen with great success, as she sings and dances her way into our hearts. Petunia is the central character in the film, and has most of the songs. The film was also instrumental in making Lena Horne a star, and even though her part as the devil's handmaiden, Georgia Brown, is not a large one, she is stunning, and makes the screen sizzle with her sensual beauty.
Petunia's husband, Little Joe, is played by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Little Joe's soul is in the balance, as Lucifer Jr. (Rex Ingram) battles The General (Kenneth Spencer) for where it will spend eternity. The scenes with Lucifer and his minions, who include Louis Armstrong, are hilarious, as they plot the best way to tempt Little Joe. The talent, music, and humor in this film make it well worth watching as entertainment, and also for its historical value of being one of the best all-black cast vehicles Hollywood produced.
"Cabin in the Sky" was the directorial film debut for Vincente Minnelli (he had directed the Broadway show), and some others in the terrific cast are John William Sublett, Butterfly McQueen, and Duke Ellington and his Orchestra. Music is by Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg, and more. The song list is: "Cabin in the Sky," "Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe" (nominated for a Best Song Oscar), "Taking a Chance on Love," "Life is Full of Consequence," "Li'l Black Sheep," "Shine," and "Honey in the Honeycomb." Total running time is 98 minutes.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HAPPINESSS IS JUST A THING CALLED "Cabin" on DVD!, January 20, 2006
The beautiful Vernon Duke/John La Touche Broadway hit CABIN IN THE SKY was brought to the screen by the foremost studio of the era (the late and lamented M-G-M) and the foremost producer of musicals there, the magnificent Arthur Freed.
Freed engaged the services of the Broadway hit's original star Ethel Waters, and gave Vincente Minnelli his first assignment as a motion picture director. Minnelli had directed on stage, but spent two years at Metro learning the craft of filmmaking, before Freed gave him the opportunity to become one of the greatest of all motion picture directors. Minnelli's musicals are what he is best known for, but he also directed brilliant dramas (both period and contemporary), comedies (both slapstick and witty) and even films that could be considered noir. This man could do anything.....
The Warner DVD of CABIN features a clean, and crisp transfer with lovely extras including the Pete Smith short STUDIO VISIT which has the surviving footage of Lena Horne's outtake song from CABIN "Ain't it The Truth". The audio track for Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong's version of that same song, is used here with still visuals, as either that version was never filmed, or the number didn't survive in the copious musical outtake archive that the old MGM maintained, which now belongs in the hands of the mightiest of all studios (when it comes to DVDs) WB. I also loved the commentary with sound bytes from Lena Horne and Rochester's widow and daughter.
THIS IS A MUST HAVE! GET IT TODAY!
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