Palmy Days (1931)

Simply Perfect

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

With "Whoopee" one of Samuel Goldwyn's biggest moneymakers, the follow up for Eddie Cantor, Busby Berkeley and the Goldwyn Girls didn't need to veer away from the tried and true formula. Unfortunately it was released in those dark "this is NOT a Musical" days. Even though it was filmed in black and white and at just over 70 minutes was pretty short for a major production, it had an eye catching opening performed by some of the most beautiful chorus girls around (Betty Grable leading the line). "Bend Down Sister" proved to be the hit of the movie and was sung by lanky Charlotte Greenwood as she instructs her bakery girls to be conscious of their figures - "don't go messing with French Dressing" and "Ham and eggs should always be outside looking in". The girls go into a typical Berkeley geometric formation with exercise sticks as props.Eddie Cantor plays Eddie Simpson, a bumbling assistant to a phoney fortune teller (Charles Middleton). Eddie has an odd habit of singing whenever he is nervous and that is happening a lot because he has just been installed as an efficiency expert at Clark's Bakery (the medium wants to hypnotise the owner to take control!!) There's lots of laughs - at one point Eddie (in his love happy state) breaks off a corner of the desk and as the boss fumes, Eddie blithly tells him that will now discourage people from sitting on the desk and wasting time. Eddie gets to like the job and wants to go straight. He breathes new life into the bakery - even though it has the best food and the prettiest girls, it has no pizazz - until Eddie puts on a floor show and in "blackface" sings "There's Nothing Too Good for My Baby" - ("Baby wants a limousine - I show her one in a magazine").The crooks learn of a $25,000 payroll that Eddie has been given charge of - this makes for a lot of comic situations, Eddie posing as a woman, having to go into the girl's change rooms and at the end having a swimming lesson with the girls as they swim "au natural" -pretty racy but good fun. He ends up taking the money out of the safe and baking it in a loaf of bread - then accused of theft he must find the loaf to clear his name. Charlotte Greenwood joins him as his comic romance - the "physical torturist" according to Eddie."Palmy Days" was intended as a straight comedy with one song, "Yes, Yes" but when Goldwyn saw it at a preview he ordered more songs. "Yes, Yes" is performed at Joan's (Barbara Weeks) engagement party - Eddie thinks he is the lucky man (in reality it is really colourless Paul Page) and sings the energetic "Yes, Yes" followed by another formation dance by the Bakery Girls ("Bend Down, Sister" was a more enjoyable, precise routine). In this dance there were hat boxes as steps and at the end the dancers hold up cards to become a train. Audiences were more intrigued with Eddie's "put put" antics - a weird quacking noise he made throughout the movie. When the movie was re-released in the 1940s George Raft (formerly billed 7th) replaced Greenwood's name from 2nd billing. It must have been puzzling to Raft's many fans to find he played a henchman - "Joe the Frog" with only a few mumbled lines.Highly Recommended.

At a time when musicals had fallen completely out of favor with the movie-going public, Eddie Cantor and Busby Berkeley were still able to bring smiles to faces and audiences into theaters with this 1931 pseudo-musical by offering a bankable star (Cantor) in a foolproof formula. The title refers to a ring of bogus spiritualists for which Cantor's character has served unwittingly as a front man. During the film Eddie falls repeatedly into some dangerous or embarrassing situation and by virtue of his own hyperactivity emerges victorious in each case.The film includes only three major song sequences, but they are all very well done, and coupled with Cantor's delivery they are infectious. Busby Berkeley opens the film with a musical number involving a gymnasium full of scantily clad Goldwyn Girls - supposedly employees of a surrealistic bakery where all the action takes place - in the aptly titled "Bend Down, Sister". The cast includes long and lanky Charlotte Greenwood, a regrettably forgotten character actress. She plays the physical fitness instructor who believes - thanks to the bogus spiritualists - that Cantor's character is her future husband. The chemistry between Greenwood and Cantor is priceless as she relentlessly pursues Eddie. Then there is George Raft as a hood who is out to get Eddie. Finally, there is Mr. Clark, the president of the bakery, who has confused Eddie for an efficiency expert. when he asks Eddie "How many girls do you think work here?", Eddie's answer is a very professional "About half". The whole thing is 77 minutes of enjoyable musical and comedic nonsense that I never get tired of and that could only have been possible pre-code.Singin in the Rain it isn't, but like that film it is sure to put a smile on your face every time you watch it.

The other more knowledgeable reviewers have given comprehensive overviews of this movie so I'll stick to giving reasons for why I rate this as one of my favourite American musicals of all time.Charlotte Greenwood, she of the L O N G legs and faultless timing. This is one of three movies in which Miss Greenwood, for me anyway, made those movies worth watching time and time again, the others being "Springtime in the Rockies" and "The Gang's All Here". Her appearances are a joy to behold; she never puts a foot (or leg) wrong, and delivers lines as only she can. Wow, what a gal! The musical numbers. Yes, there are only three of 'em, but what great numbers. The best is "Bend Down, Sister", consisting of a magical song I've whistled my way through at least a couple of times every week for the past 40 years.Eddie Cantor. A unique talent, along the lines of Al Jolson. I remember Eddie in the early days of television; he could always deliver a song which would keep me transfixed, unlike most of the other singers appearing on television at the time. When I finally caught up with his early musicals in the 1960s, it was a revelation.Here's to you, Eddie, Charlotte and of course, The Master, Busby Berkeley!

"Palmy Days" is one of comedian Eddie Cantor's funniest films, with some snappy songs, lots of pretty girls, and a genuinely exciting climax in which Eddie and a jacket full of money end up on a conveyor belt heading towards a giant bread-slicer. Even Eddie's obligatory blackface sequence is less obtrusive here (and less offensive) than usual. As with Al Jolson, audiences expected Eddie Cantor to "black up" in burnt cork for at least one song in most of his stage musicals and early movies. (Jolson and Cantor were friends in private life but bitter rivals professionally.)In "Palmy Days", Eddie plays the meek assistant to a phoney medium, played by Charles ("Ming the Merciless") Middleton, who's trying to swindle Spencer Charters, the superstitious owner of a gigantic bakery/restaurant staffed by dozens of beautiful waitresses and she-chefs in skimpy outfits who perform Busby Berkeley dance routines while baking the crullers. A misunderstanding persuades Charters to engage Eddie as his new time-and-motion expert. When Charters hands Eddie $25,000 cash to dole out to the employees as efficiency bonuses, Middleton and his goons try to kill Eddie so they can steal the cash.The songs are catchy, with good lyrics and some early Busby Berkeley choreography: not dancing as such, but lots of pretty girls marching in close formation. The jokes are (mostly) very funny. Eddie Cantor often had lacklustre leading ladies, but here he's teamed with Charlotte Greenwood, a long-limbed comedienne who's very funny in her own right and quite appealing (for those of us who fancy an assertive woman). Charlotte leads the girls in a neat gymnastic routine to the tune of "Bend Down, Sister". George Raft is well-cast as one of Middleton's goons.Some of the gags in this movie are surprisingly blue. A very young Betty Grable does a brief comedy routine with a fussy young man whose favourite flower is a "pansy" (nudge, nudge). There's an amazingly kinky and protracted drag sequence in this film, when Eddie is fleeing from the thugs who are trying to kill him. Eddie puts on a blonde wig and one of the skimpy waitress uniforms, and he hides among several dozen real waitresses.Eddie Cantor was a small, delicate man with large eyes: when he wears a female disguise in this movie, he comes amazingly close to resembling a good-looking woman! Meanwhile, gym-mistress Charlotte is herding all the waitresses into the changing room so they can undress and take a shower. Charlotte grabs "waitress" Eddie and orders "her" to undress and get into the shower with all the "other" girls. If "waitress" Eddie's male gender gets exposed, he'll get killed. Adding to the kinkiness is a quick reaction shot of Charlotte Greenwood, suggesting that she *knows* this particular "waitress" is really a man in drag. The end of this sequence is astonishing, and I'm surprised it got past the censors: if this movie had been made a year later, the Hays Office would definitely have scissored it.There's an amusing continuity error in this film. When Charters first hands the $25,000 bonus money to Eddie, it consists of several large stacks of banknotes. A bit later in the film, this same $25,000 has somehow compressed so that Eddie can hide it all inside a single loaf of bread. During the fight scene at the climax of this film, the whole $25,000 has somehow morphed into a single fistful of cash.They don't make 'em this funny anymore. "Palmy Days" has a big production budget, and most of it shows up on screen in the gorgeous sets and costumes. Try to ignore the brief subplot romance between bland Barbara Weeks (who?) and dull Paul Page (double who?). I'll rate "Palmy Days" 10 points out of 10. Bend down, sister!