Cabin in the Sky (1943)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Vincente Minnelli

Writers:

Lynn Root (play)
Joseph Schrank (writer)

Release Date:

9 April 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Musical | Fantasy

Tagline:

Broadway's big, fun-jammed music show is on the screen at last--crowded with stars and songs and spectacle in the famed MGM manner!

Plot:

A compulsive gambler dies during a shooting, but he'll receive a second chance to reform himself and to make up with his worried wife.

Plot Keywords:

It Was All A Dream | Religion | African American | Angel And Devil | Angel

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Ethel Waters	...	Petunia Jackson
Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson	...	Joseph 'Little Joe' Jackson
Lena Horne	...	Georgia Brown
Louis Armstrong	...	The Trumpeter
Rex Ingram	...	Lucifer Jr. / Lucius Ferry
Kenneth Spencer	...	The General / Rev. Greene
John William Sublett	...	Domino Johnson (as 'Bubbles' John W. Sublett)
Oscar Polk	...	The Deacon / Fleetfoot
Mantan Moreland	...	First Idea Man
Willie Best	...	Second Idea Man
Fletcher Rivers	...	Third Idea Man (as Moke [Fletcher Rivers])
Leon James Poke	...	Fourth Idea Man (as Poke Leon James)
Ford Washington Lee	...	Messenger Boy (as 'Buck' Ford L. Washington)
Bill Bailey	...	Bill
Butterfly McQueen	...	Lily

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Oscar Polk's last movie.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Domino Johnson accidentally shoots Petunia in the nightclub, she drapes her right arm over the staircase twice.

Quotes:

Petunia Jackson: You have a funny feeling, Joe?
Joseph 'Little Joe' Jackson: I've got a feeling, but it ain't funny!

Movie Connections:

References King Kong (1933)

Soundtrack:

Li'l Black Sheep

Ethel Waters Shines in "Sky"

Despite an extremely talented cast giving excellent performances, Ethel Waters is the sensation here, at age 46 starring in her first major motion picture and giving one of the American movie musical's most virtuoso performances, poignant, comic, dramatic, wistful, saucy, and always utterly human. Her deeply moving vocals are appropriately out of this world. She is unforgettable.

The cast does fine work. Eddie Anderson is an endearing rascal who is a good soul despite some bad leanings who is the world to Ethel. The gorgeous young Lena Horne is the femme-fatale who adds her own brand of havoc to the homestead. Rex Ingram is hilarious as Lucifer Jr. and Kenneth Spencer is equally outstanding in the role of his Heavenly counterpart. I would have liked to have seen more of Butterfly McQueen as Ethel's best friend Lily; Butterfly makes her presence known in the little she has to do here. And it was quite of shock to see the great Louis Armstrong, truly one of the 20th century's musical legends playing a rather minor part as one of Ingram's idea men. Everybody knows Satchmo is on the side of the angels! One last comment I want to add, several people have commented negatively about Miss Waters, the real off-screen woman. True she had her personal demons like most people and may have been a handful to work with during this period but that's true of many of the great women stars who knew show business was a tough racket to get ahead in and stay on top. The same has been said of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Lucille Ball. Imagine how much even tougher it was for Ethel as an African-American back then. She knew what was right for her and as a show business professional she certainly knew nobody else was going to be after her best interests as much as she herself. Undoubtedly, it did make enemies for her as it did for Bette, Joan, and Lucy. Yet nobody has mentioned Ethel became far more tranquil in her later years as she embraced her religion more fully and walked away from much of show business and devoted herself to not very lucrative gospel music. Near the end of her life, she had the wisdom to note "Back then, I had everything but I had nothing. Now I have nothing but I have everything." Judging by her talent, it looks to me though she always had everything.