A Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic

In his day, Eddie Cantor was a huge star on stage. He could sing, dance, do comedy and was very popular. However, one part of his act that's hard to embrace today is his propensity to do black-face-- much like Al Jolson and George Jessel. While in 2016, the thought of a minstrel act is reprehensible, back in the day it was popular and folks didn't think twice about how racist it was. I am NOT defending this...just explaining the times because this short film features Cantor doing one of these numbers! The film was made at the old Astoria Studio in New York and in this studio, they decked it up to look like a nightclub.

Eddie appears a couple minutes into the film (following some dancers and an emcee announcing him). He does a bit of comedy and sings...all in black-face! You also see a few stars in the audience, such as Richard Dix--though I have the feeling that they weren't actually there at the studio but it was stock footage instead. I won't swear to that...but I can't see them getting Dix (a big star at the time) to trudge out to the out of the way studio for a 5 second appearance!

So is this any good? Well, not really. You can find much better Cantor footage in some of his later films (such as "Forty Little Mothers" or "If You Knew Susie") and the sound quality is poor. On the other hand, at least from a historical perspective, the short is a valuable piece--a look back into the times in which it was made. Very surreal, to say the least, when you see it today!