CABIN IN THE SKY, 1943

Cabin in the Sky is a musical film that had its genesis as a Broadway play starring some of the same actors—Ethel Waters as Petunia, for example. The play was choreographed by George Balanchine, which helps to explain the high class of the movie directed by Vincent Minnelli in his directorial debut. Up to this time, there had been no other mainstream Hollywood movie featuring black characters. Minnelli broke new ground. Black life is accorded its recognition as autonomous and independent of mere servitude to whites. There are no white actors. Not totally unlike black communities of today, people, though relatively poor, are in touch with wealth and glamour, since they are not geographically segregated by income level. The main characters—Petunia and husband Little Joe—live in a simple cottage, but they might be seen dressed to the gill at the local nightclub, and there the drapery and valances are immensely elaborate, and gamblers (like “Shine”) earn great sums of money, and are almost worshipped. Black people know how to party, and like to look good. Lena Horne as Georgia Brown, a temptress out to snag Little Joe (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson), never looked lovelier, with her white floral midriff tied under her breasts, her black slinky skirt, and a white flower in her hair. There were two musical performances that I, idiosyncratically, take away from among the jam packed great musical numbers. One is where Horne is lying beguilingly in a hammock singing a duet—“Life is Full of Consequences”—with Little Joe. Her voice is as silky and kittenish as his is gravelly and like a drill sergeant’s—a perfect contrast. The other piece that had me swooning was Duke Ellington’s “Going Up,” performed by his band, where people dance in a Busby Berkeley-choreographed amalgam of a realistic nightclub dance grafted onto a staged performance. Miraculous. The Faustian plot—Joe gets a reprieve from death and Hell in order to prove himself worthy for heaven--was too gooey for my taste, but the screenplay, performances and magnificent visual style more than made up for that. Highly recommended.