Good Morning, Eve! (1934) User Reviews

Pleasant excuse to show chorus girls in Technicolor

[psteier · 6/10 · 24 June 2001]

Adam (Leon Errol) and Eve (June MacCloy) leave the Garden of Eden and stroll through history, stopping for production numbers in Rome with Nero and in England with King Arthur.

Light comedy and dancing. Some nice vaudeville touches, like the hillbilly band in Rome.

Called the second live action three strip (full color) Technicolor film (it was released after La Cucaracha), the surviving print is in great shape with wonderful color.

Adam In Spats

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 5 November 2008]

For those of you who remember Dino DeLaurentis's solemn and serious film The Bible and the sight of humpy Michael Parks as Adam the idea of Adam being cast as Leon Errol is something to turn over in your mind. Errol together June McCloy as a curvaceous Eve. Errol in fig leaves and spats as Adams is quite a the treat, just the concept makes you laugh.

Leon takes a bite of the apple at the urging of Eve, but instead of being banished, the two of them take a surreal tour through their descendants. The biggest segments are at the courts of Nero and King Arthur.

There seems to be some dispute whether this is the first three strip color film or the second. It is a landmark of sorts and a funny film with the inimitable, lovable, inebriated playboy Leon Errol.

In the end Adam and Eve find themselves where Cain went, the land of Nod.

"You know, you're the only girl in the world for me!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 9 December 2016]

Whoa! You don't need any other reason to catch this 1934 film short than for it's amazing Technicolor rendition, so gorgeous and vibrant you would think it's from a restored print and not the genuine article from over eighty years ago. But it's not just the color quality, the film makers dressed this thing up with some of the best costuming you're likely to find anywhere, including feature films of the era. It makes me wonder who might have green lit the budget for this flick, it didn't look like any expense was spared.

As for the story, it's rather hokey, so you'll just have to get beyond that. It has Adam and Eve (Leon Errol and June MacCloy) taking a forbidden bite of the apple in the Garden of Eden, who then proceed to stroll through the centuries meeting various historical figures like Emperor Nero and King Arthur. The time travel couple is accompanied by music and dance along the way, winding up in the twentieth century among a bevy of buxom beach ball beauties (come on, it took me a while to come up with the alliteration).

For political correctness sticklers of the present day, Adam does make one unfortunate remark when he calls out to the black cart man as 'Boy', but one might catch him a break as the whole thing wound up being a dream. The couple wake up as guests at the Garden of Eden Nudist Colony!

Very Impressive

[Michael_Elliott · 23 December 2008]

Good Morning, Eve! (1934)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Warner short is best known for being the second three-strip Technicolor film in history. It has Adam (Leon Errol) and Eve (June MacCloy) eating the forbidden apple and then taking a walk through history where they do a dance and music number with Nero in Rome and King Arthur in England. The main reason to watch this movie is for its beautiful Technicolor, which looks downright amazing. Just take a look at all the leaves covering Adam and Eve's bodies as the green nature of them just leaps off the screen and punches the viewer in the eyes. The colors are so extremely well here that I'd say this might be the best looking color film of the decade. The music numbers are fairly good and overall the film is charming but another big key is the pre-code elements. Seeing Eve in her fig leaves hardly covering any of her body certainly stands out. The mechanical snake in the garden was pretty funny as well.

silly little short in TECHNICOLOR

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 24 July 2023]

Adam (Leon Errol) and Eve (June MacCloy) have their leisurely life. Adam is tired of the same food. The snake offers them an apple. They get thrown out of Eden and into later eras. They visit Rome with Emperor Nero, Sir Lancelot fights the Black Knight, and finally at a modern day airfield.

I would like a less balding Adam, but I do really like the couple's sarcastic tone. It's a silly short. It is an early production with the full Technicolor process. The colors are bright and gaudy in the best Technicolor way. I have to give it an extra point for pushing the technical envelope. The short is stupid fun and it never pretends to be anything more. Mostly, it's to showcase all the bright colors.

Good early Technicolor wasted on weak musical comedy short...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 11 June 2009]

Warner Bros. must have been gearing up for producing their first full-length feature in Technicolor when they made this experimental short starring LEON ERROL as Adam and JUNE MacCLOY as Eve, both wearing abbreviated costumes covered with leaves. The only real asset is the Technicolor which looks fine.

Story has the two of them dreaming about frolicking through the centuries with various famous people--beginning in Nero's garden in Ancient Rome, King Arthur's court, and ending in the 19th Century at the beach where a bevy of bathing beauties do a routine dance number at the beach. Says Adam: "It's a nice century you have here." That's a good sample of the wit.

All of the gags are lame, full of flat one-liners, and the musical interludes are downright dumb. MAXINE DOYLE sings a forgettable tune in a very thin voice that the soundtrack makes sound even tinnier.

The big surprise is that this was 1934, a few years before Warners made THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, their most acclaimed Technicolor feature at that time. The color photography looks fine but the short is weak on wit and the cast fumbles through some bad material.

Exactly what people wanted to see back then, not so much for today

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 12 December 2016]

"Good Morning, Eve!" is a 19-minute live action short film from 1934, so this one is already over 80 years old. The people who worked on this one, in front of the camera as well as behind it, were all fairly prolific and people with an interest in films from the first half of the 20th century may possibly recognize some of the actors, Stooges fans in particular for example. Anyway, the title already gives away that this is the story of Adam and Eve and they take a travel through time from their very early days to the days of Nero in Rome over the Middle Ages and finally arriving today (I should say the 1930s). This one is packed with music, even if I must say it is mostly music that invited people back then to dance and nothing with really amazing range. But that's fine. What is less fine is how the two protagonists almost disappeared during the Middle Ages sequence and this is where the film felt like it had no focus and was really just for the sake of entertainment. The lack of a story cannot be neglected here and recurring jokes like Adam drooling over all kinds of women cannot really make up for it. At least the ending was somewhat funny and smart and actually fairly progressive for a film from back then (even if we don't see any real nudity of course). And it also explains why Adam and Eve are not only not scared from from an airplane, but run right towards it. An early example of dream sequences used in film, something Méliès for example also used already in the 19th century. As a whole, this film has not aged very well, but I can see its appeal to people in the 1930s, also because of the use of Technicolor. I still give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

The Technicolor Goldmine of 1934

[ptb-8 · 10/10 · 15 May 2008]

Whhhoooaaaaaooohhhhh! this 1934 chorus girl and costume test musical short is a sensation! and hilarious! and in eye-popping flawless 3 strip Technicolor! and from Warner Bros with delirious songs and fantastic clunky zippy Vitaphone sound. For me this is a musical short that is genuine Technicolor movie musical paradise for 18 minutes.... as nutty as a Bugs bunny cartoon of the 40s and as pre code rude as we could wish for... with hilarious skits of Adam (in spats) and Eve wandering through time chatting to anyone they meet and being waylaid by bevies of gorgeous creatures and hilarious musical sequences. The madness of the whole production is only enhanced by the incredibly beautiful costumes... and especially in the beach-side finale with modern 1934 bathing beauties both men and women frolicking on the beach. From Ancient Rome to modern 1934 Hollywood GOOD MORNING EVE is just about the best cornucopia of Technicolor comedy gorgeousness imaginable. Yes I know I am in hysterics about this but so will you when you see it. ... and deliciously pre code.. you have never seen such tight tiny shorts on these girls! Even today it makes my 20 year old friends gasp. No bras in history at WB either. Hilarious! Even the aeroplane they fly in is enough to make you want to see THE ROCKETEER again.

Eat the apple, and be doomed to travel through musical comedy history!

[mark.waltz · 10/10 · 27 November 2020]

Doesn't sound like a bad way to spend eternity to me!

This gorgeous three strip color musical short is a variation of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee" that deals with time travel, musicalized by Rodgers and Hart seven years before. It follows the exploits of Adam and Eve, traveling along the roads of history as punishment for original sin. Rubber legged comic Leon Errol (later famous for the "Mexican Spitfire" series) is a delightfully sardonic Adam with June MacCloy a sultry Eve. We go down the roads of history with them, divided into chapters by the century greeting them in stone.

Singing and dancing to jazzy music with the likes of Nero, Guenivere and some 1930's California bathing beauties gives the viewer a fractured fairytale view of history and is a lot of fun. The bright colors accentuate every bit of green, red and blue, and is stunning. This may have come out as the depression was winding down, and no wonder it was soon over. One of the very best musical comedy short I've ever had the privilege to travel through history to see!

Breathtaking gorgeous early Technicolor

[earlytalkie · 10/10 · 1 March 2011]

The most amazing thing about this entertaining little short is the fantastic condition that it has survived in for the past 77 years. Not only does it feature color that is perfect, but the clarity and cleanliness of the print are extraordinary. This film looks like it was shot last week instead of decades ago. The slender storyline has Adam and Eve wandering through the ages and there are a few good lines and some pretty good musical numbers interpolated. This film was probably made as an experiment to test the then-new three color Technicolor which is seen to beautiful advantage. There are costumes of every color, interior shots, exterior shots, and just for good measure, A gorgeous beach shot. Simply breathtaking.

Well, this film certainly DOESN'T take itself very seriously!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 5 March 2017]

The color film begins in the Garden of Eden and Adam is played by Leon Errol. Soon, the two dopes eat an apple and they are tossed out. Then, they take a walk through history (??) and decide to go to ancient Rome--to the time of Nero. Here, there is a Vaudeville-style show and Adam makes time with all the beauties. Eve is NOT happy and takes him forward to the time of the knights of old. They meet the Black Knight, Lancelot and other fictional characters from King Arthur's court--with even more hot ladies. Then, they make their way to the 20th century. There, they take an airplane ride and arrive at the beach where they meet a guy who is about to marry wife #5. And, once again, lots of very pretty ladies appear and they sing...like the other time periods. As for the ending...well, I won't say more but it does tie this all together very well and was quite funny.

Is this a must-see film? No...but it is quite enjoyable and is one of the few existing Technicolor Vitaphone shorts. The condition of the print is near-perfect--and the over-saturation of color is actually normal for films of the period. The color was indeed VERY vivid. The jokes are hit and miss and the songs just okay...but the fact they never take themselves seriously makes this a cute little picture...and a bit racy considering it's Post- Code.

Adam Wears Spats!

[boblipton · 8/10 · 14 December 2019]

Adam (Leon Erroll) and Eve (June MacCloy) eat the apple and go wandering down the road of musical-comedy history, to Nero's Rome, King Arthur's Camelot, and Atlantic City.

Warner Brothers spared no expense on this short, the second live-action 3-strip Technicolor short -- Erroll had also starred in the first, SERVICE WITH A SMILE. There are songs, dances, and dozens of beautiful chorines dressed in bright colors, to show off the new standard in color movies. By modern standards, it is silly, but that was its intent all along; Erroll had been a star of Broadway comedies for more than a decade at this point, and was moving into films with a will. He would become a major supporting comic in features, as well as the star of a long-running series of short subjects (in black&white) at RKO.

Third Short Three-Strip Color Live-Action Film With More Complex Scenes

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 1 April 2023]

Pioneer Pictures followed with its own Technicolor short film a month later in August 31, 1934's "La Cucaracha." The small Pioneer studio, affiliated with RKO, was formed to produce color movies. Two Whitney-family members, large stockholders in Technicolor, believed in the company's technology. At first having ambitions to produce the first color feature film using the new process, the Whitneys, along with Merian C. Cooper ("King Kong") as the studio's vice president of production, opted for the shorter musical. In "La Cucaracha," Steffi Duma stars as a jealous singer who hears a famous theatre owner is looking to audition her dancer boyfriend in a Mexican cafe. Her attempts to derail his chances are an excuse to display Technicolor's vibrant colors to the viewing public.

"La Cucaracha" gained fame as the Academy Award winner as the Best Short Subject in a Comedy. Its success at the box office spurred interest towards financing expensive feature films. Pilgrim had spent $65,000 on the 20-minute color short, far more than the normal $15,000 black and white movie at the time.

Joan Crawford

[phillipskurka · 10/10 · 4 August 2022]

Joan Crawford isn't mentioned in the cast. But she is one of the beach girls wearing a yellow bathing suit on her knees next to a blonde with back to the camera.