For that tiny handful of you who actually have access to Turner Classic Movies, they are showing one of the WORST films ever made, at 6:00 a.m. (EST) on Tuesday, April 17. It’s “Golden Dawn” (1930), and you will sit there staring at the teevee with a “Springtime for Hitler” expression on your face, wondering WHAT the hell they were thinking.
It features B’way star Vivienne Segal as Dawn, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed “African” girl who falls in love with a colonial (she sings “My Bwana” to him) and who is menaced by Noah Beery (Wally’s brother), who wears blackface and does “Negro dialect” that sounds like Al Jolson gone haywire. Noah even sings a love song to his whip. Oh, there’s an African “god” that looks like a giant Pez dispenser, too. P.S. I don’t wanna give away the ending, but it turns out that—surprise!—Dawn ain’t really a black girl. Catch it!
Oh, on a higher plane, TCM will be showing just about all of W.C. Fields’ films next month, including two I’ve been wanting to see again for years: “If I Had a Million” and “The Old-Fashioned Way.”
So, is “Golden Dawn” worse than “Kiss Her Goodbye?” For some reason I have a feeling that the plot wouldn’t go over too well if someone decided to produce a remake at one point.
On a side note, have you ever seen “Moment by Moment”? An oiled-up Travolta in a love story with Lily Tomlin (and did anyone really ever think she was straight?). Lots of Vaseline on the camera lens. To awful even to be released on video, but they still showing it at 3:05 a.m. on A&E of all places.
<sigh>…Please, please tell me that it’s not the same Noah Beery who played Rocky on The Rockford Files.
I now have this image of him running around in blackface and doing “Negro dialect” while tooling around with James Garner on the beaches of Southern California.
I guess I’d better skip the movie. BTW, Eve, your “Springtime for Hitler expression” line was the funniest thing I’ve heard this week. Thanks A Million!
TCM does show some excellent forgotten films. Recently, I caught “The Wild Man of Borneo,” starring Frank Morgan of quintuple-Oz duty. I was expecting something like John Lester Johnson’s “Yum-Yum! Eeeeeeat 'em UP!” But no, the “Wild Man from Borneo” was portrayed by. . . Frank Morgan.
Strainger—NOTHING is as delightfully awful as “Kiss Her Goodbye,” and bless you for remembering my pet bete noir. I live in hope of the day AMC will rerun THAT little bon-bon.
Wartime—This is indeed Noah Beery Sr., not Jr.
Inky—“Moment by Moment” and “Golden Dawn” the same week? The bad film buff’s version of the Stations of the Cross . . .
Well, you were certainly right about KHG - it was truly awful. I’ll have to see if my sister will tape it for me - she gets TCM and actually watches part of the morning movie while getting ready for work. (And she’s still kicking herself for not taping the end of “The Catered Affair”.)
I hope a lot of people will watch “If I Had a Million” - maybe then I won’t get such strange looks when I’m driving and I shout, “Beaver, Rollo!” in my best Alison Skipworth voice.
I am beginning to think there are some movies that are so execrable they should be put out of our misery. I recently saw “BAP*S”, starring Halle Berry, Martin Landau and Ian Richardson. I decided that if their friends and fans really loved these actors, they’d form an Anti-Preservation Society to track down and burn every single copy.
Just bumping this up—remember, tomorrow morning (Tuesday the 17th) at 6:00 a.m. eastern time, on TCM. One of the most mind-bendingly awful movies you will ever see! At last till someone reruns “Kiss Her Goodbye” . . .
Did anyone catch the full horror of “Golden Dawn” this morning? I saw a few minutes while I was taping it, and I must say, I had underestimated how REALLY mind-bogglingly awful it is.
No god damn TCM here in Brooklyn, either, but thanks for the heads-up, anyway.
REALLY peeved over not being able to see IF I HAD A MILLION again. Why in the hell is this not available on video? Aseymayo, if you want to go motoring together, I’d LOVE to play Rollo La Rue to your Emily.
Well, you said it was on at 6AM EST. On the local stations where I live, that would translate to an hour before, or 5AM. But it wasn’t on a local station; it was on cable. That means that either it was on two hours behind EST, at 4AM or one hour ahead, or 7AM. To explain this – shows on cable in the Mountain time zone come on one hour ahead of PST. On some stations, the show times in the Pacific and Eastern time zones are the same. On others, the show time in the Pacific time zone is three hours behind that of the Eastern time zone. Then I remembered, the rest of the country is on daylight savings time, so really the show time for us would’ve been either the same as that for the Eastern time zone (6AM) or it would’ve been 3 hours behind, at 3AM. Then I remembered I don’t get TCM where I live; I was confusing it with AMC. So I missed it.
I think some of the Dopers should get together for an Eve Golden/MST3K-style movie viewing marathon. We could watch movies like “Kiss Her Goodbye,” “Golden Dawn,” (I guess the night before “Golden Dawn” would’ve been “Golden Eve.” Hah! I slay me.) etc. and insert our own quips and witticisms throughout.
Well, I did tape “Golden Dawn” this a.m., and plan to tape “If I Had a Million” and “The Old-Fashioned Way” next month, so we could work out a round-robin film fest by post . . .
I might add that if anyone is really aching to see the horror that is “Kiss Her Goodbye,” Ukulele Ike still has the copy I loaned to him back during the McKinley administration, and I’m sure he will be happy to forward it to anyone who hasn’t already had enough torment and misery in their life.
Why the hell is TCM only available in three towns in the entire U.S.? Doesn’t Ted Turner have more pull with the FCC than that?!
So glad to see other fans of Fields represented here. A friend of mine get together from time to time and watch “Its A Gift” and “The Bank Dick” back to back just to cheer each other up.
“Father, this is my boyfriend. His name is Og Oggelby.”
“Og Oggelby, eh? Sounds like a noise you’d make in the bathtub.”
“Say friend, did I come in here last night and spend $20 on liquor?” “Yes, I’m afraid you did.” “Whew, is that a load off my mind. I thought it fell out of my wallet.”
and from “My Little Chickadee”
“Milton, I am going to retire and sink myself in younder Roman tub. I feel a bit gritty after the affairs of the day.” “Hmm, Big Chief gottem new squaw?” “I’ll say she’s new, she hasn’t even been unwrapped yet.”
“I’d rather have two girls, at 21 each, than one girl at 42.”
Well, my sister agreed to tape it for me, but it will be a while before I actually get to see it. I’ll be happy to contribute to the tape round-robin, once I’ve got it in my hot little hands.
Anytime, Ike! Let’s get those ROAD HOGS! But…, er, can we use your car?
Say, do you happen to know a Carl La Fong? That’s capital L, small a, capital F, small o, small n, small g. La Fong.
No, I don’t know any Carl LaFong, capital L, small A, capital F, small o, small n, small g. And if I did know Carl LaFong, capital L, small A, capital F, small o, small n, small g, I wouldn’t admit it.
“So, my dear, do you play any games here? Games of chance, perhaps?” “No, the only game I’ve ever played is bean bags.” “Ah yes, bean bags. I was at the world championships in Spain, once. It was a very bloody affair, many people were killed.”
