As cheap musicals go, it's not bad. The subject matter is respectable, avoiding unnecessary comedy that B-musicals of the mid forties boosted. The problem appears to be casting. For Benny Fields this is his only major dramatic lead in films, and one can easily understand, why. He is a relatively unexciting old man with no remarkable talents to showcase. He does sing, but his voice is very soft and definitely not one that would carry in a live theatre. Judy Clark is so perk that it makes your eyes hurt, and as natural as Duracel bunny. How did a quality actress like Gladys George get lost in that vehicle, is a minor mystery. Said all that, the film is quite entertaining, and the music (not meaning some well-known standards that get used but the original score) is better than is usual for a small time musical. Plus it's a reasonably short flick that doesn't let you get bored. It's also very nice to look at a good old fashioned, dignified minstrel show. Makes you wonder what the world would be like if minstrels hadn't paved the way to making black music part of our everyday life.
14 Reviews
Ohmigod There's Blackface
boblipton17 April 2019
Benny Field opens on Broadway, with a minstrel show he has written and is starring in. When his wife dies giving birth to their daughter, he disappears for 16 years.
The IMDb indicates that Edward Ulmer was in charge for the first five days, then shipped off to the second unit when Joseph H. Lewis took over. There are certainly enough bizarre angle choices to indicate that Wagon Wheel Joe was handling the megaphone, from the opening shot through the stage flies, through the low angle that the dance number in Havana is shot. Judy Clark performs her numbers like she wants to be Betty Hutton, and you can spot John Raitt just before he hit it big as Curly in the Chicago production of OKLAHOMA. The score was good enough to two Oscar nominations, for best score and best song -- and an immediate lawsuit, settled out of court.
However, this is a PRC movie, and it fails on two counts: star Benny Fields -- better known as husband and stage partner of Blossom Seeley, if that name means anything to you -- has no screen charisma and less energy, and the script looks like they started throwing out pages and didn't know where to stop. Gladys George seems to be there mainly to move the plot, and so does Jerome Cowan, although he's good as an agent collecting from both ends and nibbling at the middle. I'm sure it would have run another $40 to shoot enough footage to make them more than brooms to sweep Field along, which would have meant two fewer B Westerns that year.
Minstrel shows had been old hat in 1920, and by the time this was made, it was meant to appeal in a purely nostalgic sense to small-town audiences. Nowadays, you couldn't put this on anywhere. Nonetheless, that's where backstage musicals like this live, and that's where it succeeds. The minstrel show that starts it looks right for the era, and the swing version that closes is nicely done, thanks to choreographer Jack Boyle. It's certainly no movie to show to a modern movie fan, but to someone who loves old musicals, it has some charm.
The IMDb indicates that Edward Ulmer was in charge for the first five days, then shipped off to the second unit when Joseph H. Lewis took over. There are certainly enough bizarre angle choices to indicate that Wagon Wheel Joe was handling the megaphone, from the opening shot through the stage flies, through the low angle that the dance number in Havana is shot. Judy Clark performs her numbers like she wants to be Betty Hutton, and you can spot John Raitt just before he hit it big as Curly in the Chicago production of OKLAHOMA. The score was good enough to two Oscar nominations, for best score and best song -- and an immediate lawsuit, settled out of court.
However, this is a PRC movie, and it fails on two counts: star Benny Fields -- better known as husband and stage partner of Blossom Seeley, if that name means anything to you -- has no screen charisma and less energy, and the script looks like they started throwing out pages and didn't know where to stop. Gladys George seems to be there mainly to move the plot, and so does Jerome Cowan, although he's good as an agent collecting from both ends and nibbling at the middle. I'm sure it would have run another $40 to shoot enough footage to make them more than brooms to sweep Field along, which would have meant two fewer B Westerns that year.
Minstrel shows had been old hat in 1920, and by the time this was made, it was meant to appeal in a purely nostalgic sense to small-town audiences. Nowadays, you couldn't put this on anywhere. Nonetheless, that's where backstage musicals like this live, and that's where it succeeds. The minstrel show that starts it looks right for the era, and the swing version that closes is nicely done, thanks to choreographer Jack Boyle. It's certainly no movie to show to a modern movie fan, but to someone who loves old musicals, it has some charm.
Terrible musical drama from PRC
AlsExGal20 December 2022
Benny Fields stars as Dixie Boy Johnson, a vaudeville singer who performs in black face. His signature tune, "Remember Me to Carolina", is sung each night to his wife, also named Carolina. When she dies in childbirth, Johnson skips town, leaving the newborn, also named Carolina, in the care of friends Mae (Gladys George) and Roscoe (Roscoe Karns). Years later, the now grown Carolina (Judy Clark) tries to follow in her father's footsteps as a minstrel performer. Also featuring Jerome Cowan, Alan Dinehart, Molly Lamont, and Lee "Lasses" White.
I had never heard of Benny Fields before watching this. I've since learned that he and his wife Blossom Seeley had a very successful vaudeville singing and comedy act in the 1920's. They lost their fortune in the Great Depression, and Fields took the act solo. This movie was another comeback attempt for the 50-year-old Fields, and it was a hit at the time, leading to Fields having a number of recording hits. He seems like a nice enough guy, but the movie is awful, a hackneyed backstage melodrama with cliche after cliche. The stereotypical minstrel stuff is bad enough, and there's a lot of it here, but the handful of songs are sung over and over again. The movie still managed to nab two Oscar nominations, for Best Score (Leo Erdody & Ferde Grofe), and Best Song (Remember Me to Carolina").
I had never heard of Benny Fields before watching this. I've since learned that he and his wife Blossom Seeley had a very successful vaudeville singing and comedy act in the 1920's. They lost their fortune in the Great Depression, and Fields took the act solo. This movie was another comeback attempt for the 50-year-old Fields, and it was a hit at the time, leading to Fields having a number of recording hits. He seems like a nice enough guy, but the movie is awful, a hackneyed backstage melodrama with cliche after cliche. The stereotypical minstrel stuff is bad enough, and there's a lot of it here, but the handful of songs are sung over and over again. The movie still managed to nab two Oscar nominations, for Best Score (Leo Erdody & Ferde Grofe), and Best Song (Remember Me to Carolina").
Neo-Jolson
marcslope16 April 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The great Al himself might have pounced on the role of a great blackface minstrel singer who, after his wife dies in childbirth, becomes bitter and resentful, leaves his infant daughter with friends, tours in minstrelsy, is supposedly lost in the Morro Castle disaster at sea, and miraculously returns to be reunited with his now-grown-up little girl, who is opening in a brand-new 1944 minstrel show. The movie blithely pretends that minstrel shows are still up-to-date and wildly popular, and thus exists in a kind of vacuum. The fine Hollywood songwriter Harry Revel, who had seen better days, wrote the very derivative melodies, which were scored by no less than Ferde Grofe (of the "Grand Canyon Suite"), and it looks like the Grade-Z studio, PRC, actually spent some money on the sets and costumes, if not the cast, which consists mostly of folks on the way up or down. Gladys George, an actual Best Actress Oscar nominee back when (for "Valiant is the Word for Carrie"), lends some minimal class, and Roscoe Karns gets to display more range than his A pictures granted him; even a young, full-voiced John Raitt turns up, though he's unrecognizable in blackface. Benny Fields is, as other posters have noted, no actor and not the best vocalizer, either, but he does convey some sincerity, and it's kind of touching to see such an unappetizing and over-the-hill guy attempt a conventional leading man role. Judy Clark, as his daughter, has the pizazz and confidence of an A-picture starlet. If you can stomach all the blackface (and there's a lot of it) and the clichés piling up, you'll be pleased at the picture's efficiency and unpretentiousness. And watching a "Mammy"-"Sonny Boy"-style story nearly 20 years after it went out fashion is sort of fascinating.
A Bit of History
llewis0019 May 2015
All the previous reviews/critiques are probably right-on. I was happy to see the film because it presented a bit of theatrical history, showing something of what minstrel shows were like, especially in the opening "Gentlemen Be Seated" bit. Of course, there are similar historical pieces in other movies as well. I don't know that I had ever seen Benny Fields before, although he apparently had done many television appearances in the past, so I was curious to see him and hear him sing. Having seen this film, I rather understand why Ralph Meeker was chosen to play Fields in "Somebody Loves Me" opposite Betty Hutton and I now appreciate that bit of casting.
Let's revive the minstrel show
bkoganbing29 June 2014
I'm not sure and I'm certain to be corrected if I'm wrong, but Minstrel Man might very well be the only PRC film ever to get recognition from the Academy. It received two Oscar nominations for Best Song and for musical scoring.
A studio known for its pinch penny budgets for noirs, westerns, and a few horror films producing a musical? It's worth the novelty just to watch the thing.
A year before Minstrel Man came out Paramount even used Technicolor in its minstrel film Dixie that starred Bing Crosby. The folks at PRC thought that maybe a minstrel film would work for them. Of course they did not have Crosby or color.
The lead here is Benny Fields who was a well known song and dance man and became even better known when he teamed on the stage and in life with Blossom Seeley. Blossom was smart enough to stay away from this.
Good song and dance man that he was Fields just couldn't act. When not singing he's wooden and as charming as a wet napkin. The story covers some thirty years of the life of Fields's character Dixie Boy Johnson.
The climax involves the revival of minstrel shows. I mean in 1944, really?
Seasoned performers like Gladys George and Roscoe Karns are wasted as the surrogate parents to the daughter of Dixie Boy Johnson. And a pretty perky blond like Molly Lamont wants to hide that beauty under cork makeup. Give me a break.
It's more than the subject matter that's kept this film under wraps.
A studio known for its pinch penny budgets for noirs, westerns, and a few horror films producing a musical? It's worth the novelty just to watch the thing.
A year before Minstrel Man came out Paramount even used Technicolor in its minstrel film Dixie that starred Bing Crosby. The folks at PRC thought that maybe a minstrel film would work for them. Of course they did not have Crosby or color.
The lead here is Benny Fields who was a well known song and dance man and became even better known when he teamed on the stage and in life with Blossom Seeley. Blossom was smart enough to stay away from this.
Good song and dance man that he was Fields just couldn't act. When not singing he's wooden and as charming as a wet napkin. The story covers some thirty years of the life of Fields's character Dixie Boy Johnson.
The climax involves the revival of minstrel shows. I mean in 1944, really?
Seasoned performers like Gladys George and Roscoe Karns are wasted as the surrogate parents to the daughter of Dixie Boy Johnson. And a pretty perky blond like Molly Lamont wants to hide that beauty under cork makeup. Give me a break.
It's more than the subject matter that's kept this film under wraps.
just okay thanks to a weak lead
dbborroughs22 December 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Story of a star performer in minstrel shows who loses his wife in childbirth then gives up on his daughter who begins to rise to prominence as a performer in her own right. Okay backstage drama suffers from a leading man who is a cold fish. Its not clear how he would have been a star of any sort since the actor portraying him has such little charisma that you really don't care and he brings everything down. The music is okay with big production numbers that would make you think this wasn't a Poverty Row film. I know the subject matter of minstrel shows will not sit well with some people. Having seen a couple of similar films set in and around a minstrel show I found this film's portrayal more likely to be offensive then others. As an entertainment in its own right I found it just okay with the lead's poor performance and the subject matter diminishing my enjoyment.
fairly routine musical melodrama
didi-51 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This PRC cheapie made the Poverty Row studio a lot of money but really, it is very routine and not that interesting or groundbreaking. 'Dixie Boy' Johnson is a vaudeville performer, played by Benny Fields, who had been in vaudeville himself. He has a lovely voice to sing songs like 'Melancholy Baby' and 'Carolina' but he can't act to save his life; which is a pity considering he is in the lead role.
After his wife dies giving birth to a daughter (who grows up to be 'Dixie Girl' Johnson), 'Dixie Boy' runs out and starts a life incognito, elsewhere, eventually maybe being lost at sea ... at this point I gave up and just waited patiently for the film to end. Of course, 'Dixie Girl' Johnson becomes a star in her own right, there's a reconciliation with her long-lost dad, and all is well with the world.
Interesting what passed as entertainment in the 1940s ... but actually, this one isn't a turkey - the musical numbers are good, and with Gladys George in the cast at least we get a bit of glamour.
After his wife dies giving birth to a daughter (who grows up to be 'Dixie Girl' Johnson), 'Dixie Boy' runs out and starts a life incognito, elsewhere, eventually maybe being lost at sea ... at this point I gave up and just waited patiently for the film to end. Of course, 'Dixie Girl' Johnson becomes a star in her own right, there's a reconciliation with her long-lost dad, and all is well with the world.
Interesting what passed as entertainment in the 1940s ... but actually, this one isn't a turkey - the musical numbers are good, and with Gladys George in the cast at least we get a bit of glamour.
Blackface In This Film Is As Bad As It Gets
reymunpadilla14 August 2023
Only watch if you want a negative example of just how insulting old Hollywood could get. Contrary to the other reviews, minstrel and blackface was going strong until the 1950s and even made its way onto TV, until civil rights protests put an end to it. There was even blackface in films into the 1980s, Soul Man and Trading Places. (Yes, Tropical Thunder much later. But that was criticizing and mocking the practice of clueless whites portraying other races.)
The music is terrible and the comedy is far worse. Blackface was half imitating Black culture and half mocking Black people. But here the music is corny and tone deaf.
Blackface makeup can be incredibly jarring to see, to be reminded of just how deep racist hatred went to dehumanize Blacks. Here the mockery is also of Blacks who would dare to dress well or have money, for the clothes are over the top too.
Only see if you have a strong stomach and have a historical interest in Hollywood stereotypes.
The music is terrible and the comedy is far worse. Blackface was half imitating Black culture and half mocking Black people. But here the music is corny and tone deaf.
Blackface makeup can be incredibly jarring to see, to be reminded of just how deep racist hatred went to dehumanize Blacks. Here the mockery is also of Blacks who would dare to dress well or have money, for the clothes are over the top too.
Only see if you have a strong stomach and have a historical interest in Hollywood stereotypes.
I first saw THE MINSTREL MAN years ago on Matinee at the Bijou, which was a reconstruction of a Sunday morning Matinee.
tnarrud-0903724 October 2022
Virtually PRC's only musical before it was bought out by another company in the late 40's, this film tells the story of Dixie Boy Johnson, a performer in minstrel shows, who loses his wife when their daughter is born. Made with money from the sale of the film HITLER'S MADMAN the previous year to MGM, the film won an Oscar nomination for its score. The songs were written specifically for this film, and they're designed to bring forward the plot . The lead actor does an outstanding job, and for years l thought he was Al Jolson, only it turns out he wasn't. All in all a fine effort from PRC, and possibly even their finest film. Alas, dye to the demise of PRC's corporate successor, this film is now public domain.
enjoyable but derivative
dss-224 September 2006
Warning: Spoilers
This is a very short movie -- a little over one hour. For a movie this short it tries to hard to look at growth, defeat, and recovery. Many of the scenes seem to come from other movies. Many of the actresses seem to be mimicking others also -- a blond Ginger Rodgers type, the child star growing up, an Al Jolson type lead. despite this we enjoyed watching this film. The staging of the minstrel numbers was enjoyable and gave some insight into techniques that are no longer in use. the ubiquitous black face will be a turn off to many. Black face appears in many of the major scenes. The version we saw was on DVD. The transfer was acceptable especially considering the bargain basement price, but many of the blacks were washed out. For those interested in musicals, this clearly second level, film shows what happens when garland, Astaire and the other greats are missing
Wince-worthy
showtrmp30 March 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Low-budget early B musical of 1940 that makes you alternately laugh and cringe at the datedness and the cheery, seemingly unconscious racism. Benny Fields stars as Dixie Boy Johnson, a supposedly world-famous minstrel-show performer whose wife dies during childbirth on the very night of his biggest opening yet. He reacts to this by letting his mouth droop, shifting his cheek muscles slightly, and embarking on a five-year booze-and-gambling fest across Europe. A convenient boating accident has the rest of the world thinking him dead; he changes his name and hides out in California, sending flowers to his abandoned daughter every year on her birthday and hovering in the background as she prepares to become a star herself. When she makes her own minstrel-show debut (playing his part in a revival of his big hit!) he's in the wings silently cheering her on; he eventually sneaks onstage (blackface and all), reveals himself to his daughter (how does she recognize him?) and the two of them duet on his signature song, which he was performing the night his wife died. The maudlin tearjerking would send Joan Crawford into gales of hysterical laughter.
Fields doesn't convince as a headliner; he sings in a monotonous croon that would put Mel Torme to sleep and his acting is a series of shrugs. As if to compensate, Judy Clark (playing his supposedly destined-for-stardom daughter) is so plucky and perky and cheerful, by gum, she makes "Oklahoma" seem like "Sweeney Todd." Gladys George has a beautiful, trained speaking voice; she brings as much color and variety to her functional role as she can.
Moviegoers wanting to see some historical glimpses of minstrel-show musical staging (both of you) will also be disappointed; the Oscar-nominated(???) score rarely rises to mediocre, and the camera never seems to be in the right place during the dances. The final big production number is staged on an ugly set of steps; the chorus members file onto each step and spend the whole song crossing from one side of the stage to the other and back again. This movie certainly doesn't make anyone mourn the loss of the minstrel-show form; most modern audiences will greet the end of the picture with audible relief.
Fields doesn't convince as a headliner; he sings in a monotonous croon that would put Mel Torme to sleep and his acting is a series of shrugs. As if to compensate, Judy Clark (playing his supposedly destined-for-stardom daughter) is so plucky and perky and cheerful, by gum, she makes "Oklahoma" seem like "Sweeney Todd." Gladys George has a beautiful, trained speaking voice; she brings as much color and variety to her functional role as she can.
Moviegoers wanting to see some historical glimpses of minstrel-show musical staging (both of you) will also be disappointed; the Oscar-nominated(???) score rarely rises to mediocre, and the camera never seems to be in the right place during the dances. The final big production number is staged on an ugly set of steps; the chorus members file onto each step and spend the whole song crossing from one side of the stage to the other and back again. This movie certainly doesn't make anyone mourn the loss of the minstrel-show form; most modern audiences will greet the end of the picture with audible relief.
This Minstrel Man is an insult to minstrelsy
donniefriedman22 August 2013
As a super fan of Al Jolson, I was really interested in seeing this movie, but was sadly disappointed. It strained credulity to believe that the lead, a character named Dixie Boy Johnson, had any kind of following, let alone star power. Voice, body language, dance routines, character - all this was sorely lacking. The scenes of minstrelsy, notwithstanding the elaborate costumes, were dead in the water. I don't understand how the music was nominated for an Oscar. Really it was very ordinary. Moreover, the songs functioned as padding for a storyline was lame from start to finish. Too bad. If you want to see minstrelsy at its entertaining best, check out Swannee River, the biopic of Stephen Foster with Al Jolson as E.P.Christy and give Minstrel Man a pass.
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