Hallelujah I'm a Bum
by Lewis Milestone
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Al Jolson, Chester Conklin, Frank Morgan, Harry Langdon, Madge EvansDirector: Lewis Milestone
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 83 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-02-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Hallelujah I'm a Bum
Movie Review: Made in the Depression, This Movie Will Lift You Out of Yours
Summary: 4 Stars
(This is a review of the VHS version.)
This movie is a real find. It's done in an unusual light opera format and features a lot of rhyming sing-song that almost anticipates some of the more clever rhyming action of modern rap artists.
The movie was ahead of its time in another way too. It shows a nearly egalitarian interracial friendship - the friendship between two hobo characters played by Al Jolson and Edgar Connor. The relative lack of a racial divide between them carries over to the rest of the film. When the Mayor of New York, wonderfully acted by Frank Morgan, hands out a job in a bank to Jolson, who's briefly determined to reform out of his idle hobo ways - the Mayor at the same time hands out a job in the bank to Jolson's black compatriot.
It's true the two are then shown working in different departments in the bank. Jolson has a white-collar job stamping forms, while his buddy is in the adjacent back room sorting sacks. Still, the degree of equality shown in this movie is remarkable for the period. I can't think of any comparable adult interracial friendship shown for several more decades - until possibly "The Defiant Ones" came along with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier. And then, those two yoked men had a lot of baggage of racial discord they had to get rid of before they could become friends. In "Hallelujah," white man and black man are shown being easy, natural friends from the beginning.
Part of the reason for that might be the movie's willingness to entertain some of the Communist philosophy that was being bandied then as a solution to the poverty of that Depression era. While most of the hoboes shout him down, the marginally employed hobo played by the noted silent era comedian Harry Langdon recites a lot of Marxist doctrine about the necessity of unity among "working" men.
The people involved in the making of this film comprise a "Whos's Who" of the Hollywood/Broadway scene of the 20's and 30's. There are the stars already named, led by Al Jolson. Then the script was done by S. N. Behrman, based on a work by Ben Hecht. The famous duo of Rodgers and Hart wrote the score - and make a cameo appearance in the movie as press photographers. Watch for them!
None of the music they came up with for this film is very memorable. After a while though, I found I actually didn't mind this lack of catchy tunes. It gave me a chance to appreciate the unusual timbre of Al Jolson's voice all the more. For once, his sheer talent wasn't swamped by the overriding liveliness of the likes of "Swanee." I realized how he could read the phone book and make it into resonating melody.
Also, Jolson plays his character here with such unfailing good-nature and charismatic gusto - the film can't fail to give you a lift. No matter what sort of Depression you might be going through at the time, "Hallelujah" will bounce you out of it.
Summary of Hallelujah I'm a Bum
The legendary Al Jolson is the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Central Park" in this "stylized, sophisticated and lyrical" (Pauline Kael) comic operetta ?- one of the most decidedly different and delightful musicals ever made! A unique attempt to expand the boundaries of the format, Hallelujah I'm a Bum! captures Jolson at his charismatic best and "reveals more than any of his other surviving films just why [he] was so great a star" (The London Times)!Bumper (Jolson) is the happiest hobo in New York. He's just fallen head-over-heels in love with the beautiful young amnesiac (Madge Evans) he's rescued from a park lake. But when he discovers her true identity, the "Mayor of Central Park" suddenly finds himself competing for her affections with a rich playboy?...the Mayor of New York (Frank Morgan, The Wizard of Oz)!Al Jolson says, "You ain't seen nothin' yet," but this isn't The Jazz Singer. Jolson found one of his better movie roles in Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!, a curious 1933 artifact of the early-sound, pre-Code era, a movie replete with music, political comment, and occasionally risqu? humor. Jolie plays "the mayor of Central Park," a happy hobo who cleans up after he meets an amnesiac beauty. Alas, the workaday world isn't what it's cracked up to be, as his leisure-minded pals knew all along. Although never quite clicking into classic status, the movie is borne aloft on the Rodgers and Hart score (which includes "You Are Too Beautiful" and much rhyming dialogue) and director Lewis Milestone's fluid tracking shots of hoboes marching and singing through Central Park. That's Harry Langdon, former silent clown, as the Communist tramp warning about the impending revolution as he picks up garbage--a measure of this film's true oddness. --Robert Horton
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