Interesting. The Jolson Story, which of course features many scenes of Larry Parks playing Al Jolson in blackface, was made in 1946, but Jolson Sings Again, the sequel, is from 1949.
I’ve never seen the sequel and the IMDb page indicates that it’s about Jolson’s later career. Did they take care not to have any flashbacks to him doing blackface? Would the original have been made if the ruling had gone into effect in 1945 instead of 1948?
Or wouldn’t it have made a difference, since The Eddie Cantor Story was made in 1953 and Keefe Brasselle seems to have worn blackface in that, as Cantor was as famous for his blackface as Jolson, if not more so.
I think those movies, because they were biographies, probably were exempted on grounds of context. I don’t think a musical-comedy like Holiday Inn could’ve had a scene like the Lincoln’s Birthday number had it been made in, say, 1951 rather than 1941.
And while we’re on the subject of disturbing scenes from that movie, what about the one with the turkey running around with his head cut off? :eek:
I don’t find those particularly disturbing. Those particular comedians are doing impressions of specific people who are in the public eye and are trying for a physical resemblance to the person being imitated. In fact, if Caliendo didn’t put makeup on in order to portray Barkley, you probably couldn’t tell it apart from his impression of Dr. Phil. Which probably speaks volumes about Caliendo’s talent or lack of it. I recall Billy Crystal would put on dark makeup for his impression of Sammy Davis, Jr. I don’t think those comedians intend to ridicule a particular ethnic group in a stereotypical manner. You can say the humor is tasteless and I wouldn’t disagree with you, but I don’t think there is intent to denigrate African-Americans as a group so much as an attempt to recognizably portray a specific well-known individual.
Explain what you mean. We’re talking, at this point, about studios putting black actors in isolated scenes that could be snipped from the movies when shown in racially segregated places. That has nothing to do with the Production Code. The 1948 amendment in the Production Code prohibited racially insulting portrayals.
The examples you list don’t appear to have any cause-effect relationship with the production code, falling well after it began and well before it ended, so I don’t understand the relationship you’re claiming.
The 1948 amendment to the Production Code that prohibited racially insulting portrayals caused Hollywood to rethink its traditional depictions of blacks and American Indians. The result was a group of positive portrayals of those minorities in movies released in 1949-1950.
I agree that the scenes are really dated and awful, but consider this:
Given the time (and you cannot look at this without doing so, otherwise we enter into pure conjecture), would it have been better for Louise Beavers to not have worked? Roles for black actors were scarce on the ground in mainstream Hollywood at that time. So, it is better to not have portrayed Mamie (which I think is excellent acting and I agree re the dignity) for a (very valid) principle or was it better that Ms Beaver actually got some work? (I think that Beaver based her character on Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy, in GWTW --I could be wrong and it’s all just playing to the stereotype, like Aunt Gemima, but I like to think that.)
It’s one of those imponderables. It would have been nice to have seen all the talent available in respected roles, but that didn’t happen (it still doesn’t happen for minorities and older/overweight women).
But I do cringe when the blackface number comes on. There is a scene in White Christmas, one of my fav Xmas movies that featured a song called Mandy,–it involves many references to minstrel shows. I cringe at that one, too–partly because the costumes are so atrocious. IMS, there’s a black porter on that train–called George. <sigh>
I have no serious problem with those parts of that movie, given the context. They’re unfortunate, but Holiday Inn remains one of my favorite movies. I do have a story about it, though:
Several years ago I was spending Christmas with my mom’s side of the family, including my cousin’s husband, who is black, and his daughter from a previous relationship. She was maybe, oh, 6 or 7 at the time. At one point the three of us were hanging out in the TV room, watching Holiday Inn, when the blackface number came on. He and I had forgotten about it. She turned to us and said, “What’s wrong with that lady’s mouth?” He and I just looked at each other, helpless. How do you explain blackface to a child that young? I think eventually he said something like, “She’s just wearing too much makeup, trying to be funny.” If she’d been older it might have been an opening for a discussion about those times, but it wasn’t going to happen then. Obviously, that moment has stuck with me over the years.
Twenty years ago, officially, but as a child in the '70s I can’t recall ever hearing anyone use the original line. It was always “the people are happy”. I grew up around the Louisville area for what it’s worth.
I remember it as “the old folks are gay” - grew up in Louisville from 1974-1978 or so… was part of the bussing of inner city kids to the relative 'burbs, and 'burb kids into the city - but that didn’t have to do with segregation - it had to do with economic disparity. If you were white and lived in the poor neighborhoods, you went to the black school, and we had middle class black neighbors that went to our middle class schols. We had lots of new white kids in our school that year as well as black kids.
Explain what you mean. We’re talking, at this point, about studios putting black actors in isolated scenes that could be snipped from the movies when shown in racially segregated places. That has nothing to do with the Production Code. The 1948 amendment in the Production Code prohibited racially insulting portrayals.