Cheap Cabin in the Sky (Video) (Vincente Minnelli, Busby Berkeley) Price

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Customer Reviews of Cabin in the Sky

Great music, great cast, Ethel Waters at her best
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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A TOUR-DE-FORCE OF TALENT FROM AN AMAZING CAST
In these enlightened times, a movie such as Cabin in the Sky - which is heavily laden with racial stereotypes - seems awkwardly out of place. However, before we all jump on the political correctness bandwagon, it's worth remembering that the movie was made during WW2, and that Civil Rights Movements were some 20 or so years in the future.

Much has been written about the plot, so I won't focus on that. I will say, however, that this movie is a tour-de-force of talent. It marked Vincent Minelli's directorial debut, and it's clear that he did a fine job. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lena Horne and Ethel Waters all play their parts brilliantly. If there was any animosity between Lena and Ethel, it was easy to understand. Ethel fought tough and nail to climb the showbiz ladder, whereas Lena was the first African-American actress to be groomed specially for Hollywood. Ms Horne had specially designed gowns and mingled with the upper echelons of MGM. The moviemakers even created a special make up range for her in an effort to pass her off as an exotic Latin American belle. Lena refused to disrespect her race by denying her heritage.

Anyway, back to the film. It's Ethel Water's character, Petunia, that I warm to the most. She may have been downtrodden, and reduced to scrubbing floors. However, there's a down-to-earth warmth that radiates from her. Her rendition of "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" is superb. The late Waters was a remarkable, versatile performer, and it's a shame that she's not as well known among the masses like Lena.

As for Lena's Georgia Brown, she's nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful. Ms Horne was something of a WW2 pin-up, and it's easy to see why. She tempts the viewers (and the censors, no doubt!) with her sexy lingerie, and isn't shy to show off a good bit of thigh! The only other African American woman who showed this much flesh was Josephine Baker, but she was doing her thing in Paris!

The songs by Duke Ellington are great. Also look out for a young Louis Armstrong - he plays one of Lucifer's hilarious angels!

Cabin in the Sky is fine musical - a classic, and it's high time is was released in the UK! However, us Brits will have to do with imports for the time being. As with all US video tapes, you'll need a VCR with NTSC playback to watch this movie.

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Good Movie Fo Sho
Vincente Minnelli, who directed the film, Cabin in the Sky (1943), composed this 'race movie' with an all African American cast. What makes this film extraordinary is that Vincente Minnelli is a white director who filmed this picture with an all black cast. Around the early 1940's, mainstream production studios (Hollywood) noticed that these 'race movies' which consisted of African American directors/producers/casts, were producing huge sums of money. In an attempt to tap this newly discovered source of money, the mainstream film industry began to produce these race films which consisted of white directors/producers, but included an all African American cast. In Cabin in the Sky, Minnelli includes many social issues that black America faced during this time. A major issue that black America faced back in the 1940's and still today which Minnelli included in this film is obtaining identity/home.
An example of obtaining home can be explained by the scene where the character Little Joe (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson) dies and rises out of his body only to awake to the presence of Lucifer Jr. (Rex Ingram). As Lucifer Jr. describes to Little Joe all of the evil things that will come to him in Hell, Little Joe screams out, "I don't want to die, I just wanna' go back home to Petunia." In this scene, Little Joe identifies home as Earth, all the physical objects in which he can interact with (the absence of the spiritual world). Another example of home can be identified with the character Petunia (Ethel Waters) in the scene where she sits beside Little Joe next to him in his bed. Petunia preys to God to not take Little Joe home yet. In this scene, home is identified as the spiritual world, in which all the sins of the corrupt physical world would not exist. So in Petunias case, home is a pure spiritual world. In Little Joe's case, Earth is a testing ground to determine if a person should ascend to heaven or descend to hell. If a person lives a righteous life on Earth, then God will open the gates of heaven to that person. On the other hand, if a person lives a sinful life on Earth, the devil will open the gates of hell to that person. The moral of the film is that one must choose their path wisely while they live on the battleground between heaven and hell.
The film's title also has great significance. The title, Cabin in the Sky makes a huge statement saying that home is identified as heaven. A lack of home which is Earth, creates a void in which that void must be filled. If one can't obtain home physically, then one will obtain it spiritually. As in many of the scenes where Petunia preys to God prove that one will obtain home spiritually.
Overall, this film was excellent. It is a rare occasion to see pictures of a black heaven, in which many of the angels consisted of neatly dressed African American men in trimly white uniforms. Also, the gate keepers of heaven were young black angels, sitting valiantly on pedestals. The music by Ethel Waters and Duke Ellington with his band was phenomenal. I would recommend this movie to viewers who want to see how music and dance evolved from the old genre of 'race movies' to the new genre of 'race movies'.