My thanks to Ron Hutchinson and the Vitaphone Project for enabling me to see a print of this rare film. Interestingly, that print's original credits had been replaced with the standard opening credits for NEA, a 1950s distributor specialising in television prints ... indicating that this movie must have been shown on US television in the 1950s, or at least was legally cleared for such showing.
This is a weird little comedy short. Made in 1930, it takes place in that far future year 1950 ... but everything looks like 1930, except for Jack Haley's elaborate aeroplane and the fact that tiny little pills have replaced full-course meals. I wonder if this movie short was inspired by the elaborate Fox musical 'Just Imagine', another 1930 movie set in future year 1980, featuring the same pills gag.
Oh, there's been one other innovation. Due to the shortage of men in 1950, Congress have passed the 20th amendment to the Constitution, making it now legal for men to marry multiple wives. (Wives remain monoandrous, apparently.) Playboy Jack Haley has already got five wives: one for each weekday, with weekends giving him a chance to rest. Now he comes home from Europe with his sixth wife. She and Jack warble a novelty song -- "You're the Cure for What Ails Me", music by Jay Gorney, lyric by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg -- and then they fly off together ... leaving his other five wives gnashing each other's teeth.
What makes this very minor movie of vital historic importance is that the seventh wife is played by Evelyn Hoey ... and, along with 'Leave It to Lester' (now apparently lost), 'The 20th Amendment' constitutes her entire film career. The soprano chanteuse Hoey was briefly a major star on Broadway as well as in London and Paris before dying, far too young, in a freak shooting incident. (She was shot by her playboy lover, scion of a wealthy family, at his remote farm.) Her stage and nightclub performances were not recorded. Some of Hoey's nightclub material was also performed by Libby Holman, a torch singer with a very different style. In a bizarre coincidence, Holman was involved in a similar shooting incident a few months before Hoey's death: she shot and killed her playboy husband at his wealthy family's rural home, allegedly by accident. When Evelyn Hoey's death briefly made headlines, the public reaction was a general sense of deja vu, since this occurred so soon after the Holman shooting.
As entertainment, 'The 20th Amendment' is distinctly minor froth, although this short film might make an amusing after-piece to a screening of 'Just Imagine'. As a recording of the forgotten star Evelyn Hoey -- her physical beauty, her graceful singing voice, her comic timing -- this film is vitally important. I'll rate it 7 out of 10.
This is a weird little comedy short. Made in 1930, it takes place in that far future year 1950 ... but everything looks like 1930, except for Jack Haley's elaborate aeroplane and the fact that tiny little pills have replaced full-course meals. I wonder if this movie short was inspired by the elaborate Fox musical 'Just Imagine', another 1930 movie set in future year 1980, featuring the same pills gag.
Oh, there's been one other innovation. Due to the shortage of men in 1950, Congress have passed the 20th amendment to the Constitution, making it now legal for men to marry multiple wives. (Wives remain monoandrous, apparently.) Playboy Jack Haley has already got five wives: one for each weekday, with weekends giving him a chance to rest. Now he comes home from Europe with his sixth wife. She and Jack warble a novelty song -- "You're the Cure for What Ails Me", music by Jay Gorney, lyric by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg -- and then they fly off together ... leaving his other five wives gnashing each other's teeth.
What makes this very minor movie of vital historic importance is that the seventh wife is played by Evelyn Hoey ... and, along with 'Leave It to Lester' (now apparently lost), 'The 20th Amendment' constitutes her entire film career. The soprano chanteuse Hoey was briefly a major star on Broadway as well as in London and Paris before dying, far too young, in a freak shooting incident. (She was shot by her playboy lover, scion of a wealthy family, at his remote farm.) Her stage and nightclub performances were not recorded. Some of Hoey's nightclub material was also performed by Libby Holman, a torch singer with a very different style. In a bizarre coincidence, Holman was involved in a similar shooting incident a few months before Hoey's death: she shot and killed her playboy husband at his wealthy family's rural home, allegedly by accident. When Evelyn Hoey's death briefly made headlines, the public reaction was a general sense of deja vu, since this occurred so soon after the Holman shooting.
As entertainment, 'The 20th Amendment' is distinctly minor froth, although this short film might make an amusing after-piece to a screening of 'Just Imagine'. As a recording of the forgotten star Evelyn Hoey -- her physical beauty, her graceful singing voice, her comic timing -- this film is vitally important. I'll rate it 7 out of 10.
