Golden Dawn

This wacky operetta, bursting with flagrant racism, takes colonialist kitsch to levels perhaps never surpassed. It is, as they say, a hoot and a howl and a real eye-popper. The story, little more than melodramatic scaffolding for a generous heap of songs, some pertinent and others stuffed in to jazz up the otherwise standard operetta-style score, involves the attempt to rescue a white girl (Vivienne Segal) from the East African tribal community that raised her before she can be "married" to Mulungu, the local god, who favors her above her black- skinned tribe members because, of course, she is white. All of this occurs against the backdrop of a German occupational force in British East Africa during World War One. Heavy-handed melodramatic plot developments are interspersed with "comic" interludes involving slapstick, novelty songs and joke routines right off the vaudeville stage.

Inconsistencies and absurdities abound, the most flagrant being the portrayal of a native go- between by Noah Beery in blackface and a ridiculously inappropriate Stepin Fetchit accent; among the most straight-out entertaining sequences are songs added for the film version: "We Two" sung winningly by ace music hall veteran Dick Henderson with Marion Byron. Byron also delights with "A Tiger" – another jazzy number which she milks to the last drop of her pint-sized self. The other, slower songs which came from the stage original ("My Bwana," "Dawn," and "Mooda's Song") fare less well and are harder to understand, despite the fine voices of Segal, leading man Walter Woolf and Alice Gentle as Segal's "mother." Lupino Lane does some astounding acrobatics for "In a Jungle Bungalow." This is not the only bad musical film he enlivened.

The campiest moments occur during the climax when the white girl is about to be married to Mulungu by a bug-eyed, blacked-up witch doctor (Nigel de Brulier) who delivers his lines like a 19th century Shakespearean ham. The rock-bottom melodramatics are so over the top by the time you get to the atrociously dubbed finale, nothing matters any more. You can either goof on it or shrug, be grateful that those days are over, and move on to something more edifying. All in all, a fun fest for parties of musical theatre/musical film aficionados. This movie is to musicals what "Plan Nine from Outer Space" is to science fiction.

What can I say about Golden Dawn? To describe it as jawdroppingly, breathtakingly, deliriously bad does not come close to doing it the justice it so richly deserves. Film aficionados describe it affectionately as The Second Worst Musical Ever Made (the first being the legendary Howdy Broadway), yet even that hallowed title cannot prepare you for the cheesy wonders in store. Racist, sexist...did I mention racist?...this is a film that must be seen to be believed, and even then you'll wonder if someone slipped you something. The film is based on the semi-hit stage musical of the same name and boasts musical numbers by Oscar Hammerstein, Jr., who really should have known better. From the moment Noah Beery steps on stage in embarrassing blackface to warble an ode to his whip, to the hallucinatory Hymn to Domestic Violence sung (badly) by Marion Byron, to the truly indescribable moment when Vivienne Segal belts out a showstopping "My Bwanna," the laughs just never stop. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder who in the hell thought that making a pseudo-Viennese operetta about colonial Africa was a good idea, you'll...but you catch my drift. This movie is available on the Dawn of Sound laserdisc set, but I have decided to hold out for the Collectors Edition Director's Cut DVD with several language tracks, a Making of Golden Dawn documentary, and a whole lot of film-school twaddle on the commentary track. My advice to you is if you insist upon seeing this film-and I cannot recommend it to the faint of heart-do not do so alone! Make sure you are surrounded by friends, and are in a calm, familiar environment. Have oxygen ready and make sure your First Aid kit is fully stocked. It might be best to notify the authorities in advance. I ignored this sage advice for my first viewing and almost swallowed my own tongue. And do not even THINK about popcorn. Golden Dawn is a full-on three martini film. Better yet, just chug the gin from the bottle.

...and isn't boredom the worst cinematic experience one can have anyways? I watched Golden Dawn expecting a bore-fest full of static performances and wretched operatic screeching, having heard its reputation as the worst surviving movie musical ever made. Instead I experienced something so campy it is worthy of TCM Underground's Friday night cult film festivals.

This film definitely did not turn out like Warner Brothers expected, I'm sure. It failed at the box office and is today a very unintentionally funny film. The film is set during the first World War in Africa. It is about a native girl, Dawn (Vivienne Segal), who has supposedly been blessed by the gods to appear white, thus marking her as the future bride of the native's god - a statue that appears to be a giant likeness of Mr. Bill from the old 70's skits on Saturday Night Live. A British soldier loves Dawn, but their love is thwarted at every turn both by the fact that the occupying Europeans don't want any trouble with the natives, which they'd have if Tom Allen (Walter Woolf King) eloped with the bride of the native god, and by Shep Keyes, a native bully and strong man who wants Dawn for himself.

Shep (Noah Beery) is supposed to be an African native, yet his name and his accent are purely Gone with the Wind. Plus his black-face makeup is very obviously melting off of his body through his clothing under the hot Technicolor lights, but nobody seems to notice.

There are a large group of civilian Americans and Europeans in the story, and the reason for their presence in this remote African village is never explained. Neither is any reason given as to why they all speak like they're from Queens. One of the things in this film that does work as funny and probably intentionally so is the wiry anemic Ned Sparks-like Lee Moran as Blink and Marion Byron as Joanna, Blink's rough and bossy girlfriend. The one number that works in this film is their rendition of the Song "A Tiger", which Joanna certainly is and Blink definitely is not.

This film, made in 1930, is still using title cards to transition between scenes, something that was still common in the late Vitaphone era. However, even here there are laughs to be found. One title card reads "There was no joy among the natives. A draught was destroying them." As there is no mention of beer or wind in this film, I can only assume the title card writer meant "draught" to be "drought".

For a little over an hour of campy fun in the tradition of "The Dueling Cavalier" in Singin in the Rain, you just can't beat this one.

True, as a film, this is ludicrous, with "native African" Noah Beery speaking in a combination of U.S. Southern Black ("I'se gwine...")and cowboy dialects ("I'm a gonna pump ya plum full of lead")and some horrendous choreography. But there is some beautiful music from perhaps the greatest composer of Viennese operetta: Emmerich Kalman. This movie is based on Kalman's operetta "Golden Dawn," which premiered in New York in 1927. Especially noteworthy are two Kalman songs: "Just We Two" and a lovely ballad "You Are the One." To fully enjoy the music, one must,of course, ignore the fact that the lilting Viennese melodies and sometimes-Hungarian harmonies seem just a bit out of place in Africa.

I recently saw a book on bizarre movies featuring cheap space monsters, Bad Biker Boys, and Bad Babes in Bikinis. That's not bizarre, that's boring! Now Golden Dawn, here's a bizarre movie for you! Prisoners of war in the middle of the African jungle with the natives wanting to do a human sacrifice...and in the middle of it all we have Lupino Lane (bless his soul) doing a happy go-lucky jig. Unlike most cult films, this had a budget, and was expected to be taken as serious film making when it came out.

Believe me, I can see why people would give this a low rating. But if you're into saying "Huh?" and wondering what people were thinking when they were creating something...this is for you.