Cabin in the Sky

Cabin in the Sky
Directed by	Vincente Minnelli Busby Berkeley ("Shine" sequence) (uncredited)
Produced by	Arthur Freed Albert Lewis
Written by	Marc Connelly (uncredited) Lynn Root (play) Joseph Schrank
Starring	Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram, John W. Bubbles, Oscar Polk, Mantan Moreland, Butterfly McQueen, Ruby Dandridge, Kenneth Spencer, and Duke Ellington
Music by	Harold Arlen Vernon Duke
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	April 9, 1943
Running time	98 min
Language	English
Budget	US$662,141

Cabin in the Sky is an American musical with music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John La Touche, and a musical book by Lynn Root. The musical premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 25, 1940. It closed on March 8, 1941 after a total of 156 performances. Directed by Albert Lewis and staged by George Balanchine, the production starred Ethel Waters as Petunia Jackson, Dooley Wilson as "Little Joe" Jackson, Katherine Dunham as Georgia Brown, Rex Ingram as Lucifer Junior, and Todd Duncan as The Lawd's General.

A motion picture based on the musical was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released in 1943. The film version of Cabin in the Sky also starred Waters as Petunia and Ingram as Lucifer Junior. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson of Jack Benny fame took over the role of Little Joe, Kenneth Lee Spencer portrayed The General, and Lena Horne co-starred as the temptress Georgia Brown in her first and only leading role in an MGM musical. Louis Armstrong was also featured in the film as one of Lucifer Junior's minions, and Duke Ellington and his Orchestra have a showcase musical number in the film.

Overview and history

Cabin in the Sky tells a version of the Faust legend in which Little Joe, a man killed over gambling debts, is given six months to redeem his soul and become worthy of entering Heaven -- otherwise his soul will be condemned to Hell.

Produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente Minnelli in his Hollywood debut, Cabin in the Sky was a groundbreaking production for its time due to the decision to use an all-African-American cast. In the 1940s, movie theaters in many cities, particularly in the southern United States, refused to show films with prominent black performers, so MGM took a considerable financial risk by approving the film.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" sung by Ethel Waters.^[1]

Cabin in the Sky is remembered for its intelligent and witty script, which treated its characters and their race with a dignity rare in American films of the time, although some depictions are still a bit jarring to 21st century sensibilities. According to liner notes in the CD reissue of the film's soundtrack, Freed and Minnelli sought input from black leaders before production began on the film.

One musical number, in which Horne sings a reprise of "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble bath, was cut from the film prior to release, though it later appeared in a 1946 Pete Smith short subject entitled Studio Visit. As Horne later said in the documentary That's Entertainment! III in which the excised performance was also featured, it was felt that to show a black woman singing in a bath went beyond the bounds of moral decency in 1943. A second (non-bubble bath) performance of this song by Louis Armstrong was also cut from the final print, resulting in the famous trumpeter having no solo musical number in the film.

After years of unavailability, Warner Home Video and Turner Entertainment released it on DVD on January 10, 2006.

Songs

• "Taking a Chance on Love"
• "Cabin in the Sky"
• "Honey in the Honeycomb"
• "Love Me Tomorrow"
• "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
• "Things Ain't What They Used To Be"

Trivia

• A scene involving a tornado reuses footage from The Wizard of Oz as well as Dorothy's farm house set.

• The moonwalk is performed by the tap dancer Bill Bailey during the "Taking a Chance on Love" number. Bill Bailey was the brother of Pearl Bailey.

References

External links

• Cabin in the Sky at the Internet Broadway Database
• Cabin in the Sky at the Internet Movie Database
• Cabin in the Sky at Allmovie
• Cabin in the Sky at the TCM Movie Database
• Review at TVGuide.com