Tonight I watched a movie called "Kid Millions" (1934), starring an early legend of Hollywood named Eddie Cantor. He was born in 1892 and goes so far back that he got his start on the Vaudeville stage. He was a comedian who also sang, and his schtick was very New York Jewish, and he became a giant movie star by the time the sound era rolled around at the beginning of the 1930s, when he was almost 40. I knew of Eddie Cantor but had never seen one of his films until tonight, and I've gotta say I've never seen anything quite like it. "Kid Millions" is ostensibly about a goofy guy (Cantor) who inherits 77 million dollars when his long lost father - an Egyptologist - dies. The father had discovered a Pharoah's tomb laden with jewels (valued at 77 Million), which was all now bequeathed to Cantor. This being a New York bowery style of comedy, there are also a few other no-goodniks who are after the dough (and I hope you are reading all of this with a Bronx accent).
But the plot is only marginally important , because out of nowhere a staged Hollywood Musical number will appear, and suddenly the movie will look like a Busby Berkeley production, complete with lines of dancing Goldwyn Girls, then switching to an appearance by tap dancing sensations The Nicholas Brothers, who then give way to Cantor himself.......in Blackface.
To some, that would be a big no-no in the PC age; a slur. However, it was used as a form of comedic tribute in those days, not as a put down, and in this case it is staged in the same revue in which the Nicholas Brothers appear.
I don't even know how to describe "Kid Millions" except to call it a Hollywood Extravaganza. It's got Lower East Side comedy, featuring a young Ethel Merman and her hoodlum boyfriend. It's got the opposite, sophisticated couple of George Murphy and early star Ann Sothern, all of whom are after the money. It has the aforementioned soundstage-filmed Big Entertainment aspect of choreographed, synchronized dancing and live performance. And then it's got this crazy Egyptian plot as well, which actually winds up in Egypt for the final act of the film, where the money seekers are confronted by the local Egyptian monarch who wishes to avenge his ancestor, whose tomb was dug up in the first place.
No description can convey how crazy this movie is. It's pure Hollywood Entertainment, coming in the middle of the Depression when folks needed a pick me up. It looks big budget for 1934, and top level talent was hired all the way down the line to nail the hair trigger humor and fast talk situations that send the story careening from plot to fantasy to musical showcase and back again.
"Kid Millions" is not a movie that everyone would appreciate today because much of the comedy is broad and of the "nudge-nudge" variety, but on the other hand the whole idea of such a movie is so over the top that even the nuttier minds of today's movie industry would be hard pressed to come up with anything as creative, and they would never be able to find as talented a cast to pull it off.
Two Big Thumbs Up, then, for "Kid Millions". Eddie Cantor is nuts, like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, though in a different way. I will certainly be looking for more of his movies. ///
This afternoon I finished reading a book I'd been working on for the past few weeks, called "Dead Mountain" by a guy named Donnie Eichar. The book was recommended to me by Amazon, and I found a library copy. It is an adventure story and mystery all wrapped up into one - the tale of a group of Russian students who in January 1959 set out to hike to the summit of a foreboding mountain in the Urals of northeastern Russia. The ten students were all advanced hikers. This trek would earn them official classifications as Soviet Masters Of Sport. The hike involved a train trip to a town near the Urals, hitchhiked truck rides to get even closer, and then an extremely rough 50 mile jaunt on several snowmobiles just to get to the trail they were supposed to take, which ran alongside a frozen river. Then they had to hike another thirty miles to get to the top of the mountain.
They did all of this in temperatures that reached 25 below zero, and in knee to waist high snow.
On the night of February 1st, 1959, they had made it halfway to the top of the mountain, which was not super high, about as high as Oat Mountain here in the Valley, 3400 feet. But they were up in the frozen wilderness near Siberia, and they never came back. One hiker had turned back days earlier due to illness, but the other nine all died on the mountainside on the night of February 1st, 1959. Forensic evidence suggested that something caused them to exit their tent in a hurry. They ran into the darkness that night, in deep snow and without shoes. They split up and could neither find each other nor find their tent again, and their bodies were recovered after a month long search.
The tragedy became well known in Russia as The Dyatlov Incident, named after the leader of the hike. Over the passing decades, many theories were posed to account for the students' demise. Most of the explanations involved secret military experiments, nuclear weapons testing and the like.
Author Donnie Eichar set out to follow the hikers' path in 2012, and to interview anyone with pertinent information from that time. At the end of the book he proposes his own theory for what happened to them, and it is no less spooky than the lingering military or supernatural explanations of the Russians.
Along the way, in the telling of the story you get to know the hikers and feel that you are accompanying them on their trip, where all is well and a grand adventure is underway, until......
As a comparatively minor hiker myself, I was astonished by the gumption of these young people, who averaged 22 years in age. Perhaps their raw nerve was matched by naivete, I don't know. Even the native people who live in that area, the Mansi (similar to Eskimoes) won't go near that mountain.
But in the telling of their story there was something very inspiring about the student hikers, and how they interacted as a group in pursuit of their goal, with camaraderie and discipline, as a team against all odds. They were youthful friends who believed in something, and that is what stays with you.
You don't have to read the book, but at least Google "the Dyatlov Pass incident".
Thanks, and I will see you in the morning. My eye is feeling better too. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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