Cabin in the Sky

 

Louis Armstrong and his horn

John “Bubbles” Sublett

Minnelli with Billy Rowe, Lena Horne, and Melvyn Douglas

Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, and Vincente Minnelli

Ethel Waters, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and Lena Horne

CABIN IN THE SKY            B-                                                                                                 USA  (98 mi)  1943  d: Vincente Minnelli

How in the world am I gonna reform if I don’t remember what a mess I was in when I was dead?                —Little Joe (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson)

A good and evil fantasy, described by some as a faux naïf parable, a variation on the Faustian myth that actually showcases the minions of the Devil and the Lord pitted against one another in this all-black musical, the first film directed by Vincente Minnelli after a string of successes on Broadway as director and production designer, working in collaboration with MGM musical producer Arthur Freed, yet it’s part of a historic group of six feature films produced by major Hollywood studios during the heyday of classic cinema between 1929 and 1954 that feature all-black casts, from HEARTS OF DIXIE (1929), Hallelujah (1929), THE GREEN PASTURES (1936), Stormy Weather (1943), and Carmen Jones (1954).  These musicals provided more opportunities for black performers than were allowed in other mainstream films, beginning when sound was introduced into motion pictures and ending the year the Supreme Court desegregated American schools, paving the way for a civil rights movement that would have a changing impact on media.  All were written, produced, and directed by whites, each one symptomatic of a segregated society, with all but one (Green Pastures) being a musical, reinforcing the stereotype that blacks are happy and fun-loving, with a propensity for natural rhythm, where jazz music, an original American artform emerging from black traditions, becomes associated with vice or fallen values.  Adapting Lynn Root’s short story Little Joe, this was initially a Broadway musical released in 1940 which ran for 156 performances before going on a national tour, music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John Latouche, with the entire production staged by George Balanchine, where the undisputed star of the show is the indomitable Ethel Waters, who is a powerhouse as Petunia Jackson, the God-fearing and morally righteous wife of small-time gambler and carouser Little Joe Jackson (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson), a kind-hearted but morally ambivalent man who’s very soul she’s out to save.  After being shot in a dispute over a dice game (described as “calamity cubes”), Little Joe dies and is bound for Hell, much to the delight of Lucifer Jr. (Rex Ingram, who doubles as his gambling buddy Lucius), but is saved by the answered prayers from Petunia, pitting the forces of the Devil and those of the Lord against one another, where he is given a 6-month reprieve from death to prove himself worthy of Heaven or suffer eternal damnation afterwards, without any remembrance of this night.  Waters and Ingram are the only holdovers from the musical, with notable appearances by both Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, though Armstrong’s scenes have been cut beyond recognition, making only a brief appearance as one of the Devil’s emissaries as they enlist the aid of Georgia Brown (Lena Horne), where his only solo number was part of a Lena Horne bubble-bath sequence singing “Ain’t It the Truth” that was cut, Lena Horne Stereo - Ain't It the Truth - Cabin in the Sky 1943 YouTube (2:32), as a beautiful black woman singing in a bath was deemed lewd and lascivious, beyond the bounds of moral decency in 1943, yet it seems incomprehensible today how such a jazz pioneer and trumpet legend like Armstrong could be reduced to such an insignificant role.  Horne replaced Katherine Dunham from the musical, a rare combination of youth, talent, and beauty, playing the Devil’s temptress, an extension of the seductress role of Nina Mae McKinney in King Vidor’s Hallelujah (1929), where Dunham’s choreography is also missing.  While it’s easy to appreciate what Horne in her youthful prime brings to the film in an all-too brief appearance, one misses the theatricality that Dunham and her exquisite dancers might have brought, as her modernist aesthetic truly elevates Stormy Weather.  Ellington, on the other hand, resplendent in his white suit, is in full force leading his orchestra in the most charismatic musical number, as the allure of Things Ain’t What They Used to Be evolves into Goin’ Up, Cabin in the Sky - Duke Ellington in Jim Henry's Paradise (HD) YouTube (3:42), with a call-and-response from Lawrence Brown’s trombone laying down a musical sermon, where despite the air of urban stylization, a jazz joint is unfortunately viewed as a den of vice, much like rock ‘n’ roll would be decades later, but it’s a shame these two jazz legends didn’t see more screen time. 

The film was released during the war years when both Waters and Anderson were acclaimed radio stars, earning a modest profit due to distributions in the South, which typically refused to screen blacks in motion pictures in anything other than subservient roles to whites, but this film was widely shown on U.S. Army bases, where Lena Horne became a huge favorite among black troops.  The shortcoming of the film is the Hollywood depiction of black folklore, feeling overly simplified, creating a storybook feel, where it’s rare to see the minions of the Lord and the Devil onscreen, but they are the overriding thrust of the picture, with each side hoping to win the battle for the lost soul, yet here they feel more like dream caricatures than actual living characters, which is how they appear to the viewing audience, as they are something Joe dreams, with the Devil’s men in black, seen carrying pitchforks with little horns sticking out of their heads, while the Lord’s team is impeccably dressed in white, where the entire film is a fantasy morality tale pitting faith and devotion against the vices of sin.  The dreamy settings, however, add to a poverty aesthetic, where Joe’s dream of riches contrast with Petunia’s dream of Heaven, coming together at the end with a kind of surreal artificiality, creating an imaginary view of the afterlife.  Adding to the film’s luster, however, is the sophistication and refinement of Minnelli’s direction, which had resources that were simply not available in other all-black pictures, while his background was more attuned to contemporary New York than the Old South, so many of the plantation stereotypes prevalent in other pictures are absent, so there are no watermelon or pickininny references, and very few examples of that outdated Negro dialect.  The featured couple, however, live an unpretentious life of simplicity, far outside the corrupting reach of modernity, but there’s something off-putting about Joe’s passivity, so easily giving in to temptation, which is extremely rare for a lead protagonist, yet one amusing aspect is that even when Joe tries to do something good, like buying a washing machine for Petunia so she’ll spend less back-breaking work, it just sits on the back porch like an eyesore, completely unusable, as it runs on electricity, something they don’t have.  The impoverished couple in their modest home are a stark contrast to the artificiality of Club Paradise, with liquor and gambling and dancing, which also stands in stark contrast to the somber interior of the community church, where Kenneth Spencer, with his deep sonorous voice, plays the dual role of Reverend Green, the local pastor, but also appears as The General, the leader of God’s brigade against the Devil.  The other sharp contrast is the chic sophistication of the sleek, snappily dressed Georgia Brown, who is drawn to the fast life of easy money and having nice things, against the burdensome life of Petunia, the Mammyfied wife typically wearing a bandanna who spends too much time toiling in domestic work to be able to appreciate any of those things.  When the couple does have a moment together, it’s in their unadorned, ramshackle cabin, where the “spirit” can take them places they can otherwise not go, best expressed by this equally unadorned musical sequence, mostly taking place in the family kitchen, where tap dancer Bill Bailey (older brother to Pearl Bailey) epitomizes their dreams, Bill Bailey: "Taking A Chance On Love" (Cabin In The Sky YouTube (4:42).  Unlike the gospel music from King Vidor’s Hallelujah (1929), this is secular music, with the only religious song heard at the beginning in a small town church service, yet we quickly realize that the local pastor is also the lead servant of the Lord, who is greatly valued once Joe’s life is returned to Petunia, so she sings her appreciation, Cabin In The Sky (1943) -- (Movie Clip) A Thing Called Joe YouTube (3:36). 

It’s perhaps unsurprising that this film is the lowest-budgeted musical in the entire collection of Arthur Freed films, though he apparently fought for more funding but didn’t receive it, but they did invest in star performers, and a team of talented screenwriters, allowing Minnelli to produce a visually innovative work that showcases the talents of the performers.  They changed the score substantially from the Broadway musical version, as only three of the songs in the movie are from the original score, adding several new songs, including a Duke Ellington original, adding greater sophistication and jazz authenticity, while there are far fewer dance numbers, which have been scaled back significantly, particularly in Joe’s character.  There is one amusing change in the title song, as the original Broadway lyrics were, “We will be oh so gay/Eat fried chicken every day/As the angels go sailing by,” but the fried chicken reference was changed to “All we do is sing and pray.”  But the film’s biggest detraction is the story itself, a naïve and childlike portrait of damnation that unravels like a storybook tale, where the overly pious Petunia has a special relationship with God, having a direct pipeline, actually getting tangible results from her heartfelt prayers that she can see and appreciate, unlike the rest of us, suggesting special powers from intense religious devotion.  The film turns into a Bible story playing out before our eyes, a fictionally constructed view of Hotel Hades where Lucifer Jr’s Idea Men work in the cozy comfort of an air-conditioned office, dressed in white bathrobes and smoking cigars, where he speaks to his father, aka Pappy, by phone, conjuring up a plot to entice Joe into their underworld of doom, Cabin In The Sky (1943) -- (Movie Clip) One Of Your Favorite ... YouTube (2:36), first giving him a winning sweepstakes ticket, then sending in Georgia Brown so he has someone to spend all that money on, Cabin In The Sky (1943) -- (Movie Clip) Honey In the Honeycomb YouTube (3:23), becoming a regular patron in Club Paradise, which is viewed as a den of iniquity.  In order to combat this slide into sin, Petunia has to mix company with those who would condemn him to Hell, first paying off Joe’s gambling debt by outsmarting the gamblers, as she switches the loaded dice on them before chasing them away with a broom (“Sometimes when you fight the Devil, you got to jab him with his own pitchfork.”), Cabin In The Sky (1943) -- (Movie Clip) Double Or Nothing YouTube (3:08).  Then she shows up at Club Paradise in a flashy dress and a no-nonsense attitude, no longer pious and modest, but takes to the place as if she owns it, pushing her husband aside, insulting both Joe and Georgia as she joins Domino Johnson (John “Bubbles” Sublett, also playing Sportin’ Life in the stage version of Porgy and Bess), the man who shot Joe, who makes his own flashy entrance after getting out of jail, CABIN IN THE SKY ('43): "Shine" - YouTube (2:53), before doing an enticing dance together, Cabin in the Sky 1943 Ethel Waters Eng13 - YouTube (4:58), where she even sings a reprise of Georgia’s “Honey in the Honeycomb.”  This added swagger comes as a surprise, leaving behind her persona as Petunia Jackson and performing as Ethel Waters, an older, darker-skinned woman who breaks out of the Mammy role stereotype, where some credit must be given to Minnelli to allow this, but it also suggests what a woman would do to get her man back on the right path.  When things grow out of control, however, as a fight develops between Joe and Domino, Petunia resorts to the old reliable, turning once again to God, praying frantically, “Send down your wrath and destroy this wicked place!”  Her prayer is granted as a tornado makes its way to the nightclub, destroying everything in its path, with Minnelli recycling the same tornado sequence from THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), as both Joe and Petunia are mortally wounded by Domino’s gunshots, Cabin in the Sky (1943) Tornado Scene - YouTube (2:19).  Both husband and wife now face judgment before a stairway leading to heaven, a predecessor to Powell and Pressburger’s picture of the afterlife in STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, aka: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946).  Through Petunia’s strong faith, however, and the lengths she is willing to take to both pray for and look after Joe, both are saved, where their entrance to Heaven is shown with a surreal flourish.  But as they ascend into the pearly gates, Joe wakes up from what was merely a dream, having recovered from the earlier gunshot, with viewers only then realizing that the majority of the movie takes place in Joe’s imagination, as the audience is left to contemplate the moral of the story.  The film was added to the National Film Registry in 2020. 

A Matter of Time

 

Director Vincente Minnelli

Father and daughter on the set

Liza Minnelli with her father, and mother, Judy Garland

Ingrid Bergman with her daughters Ingrid and Isabella

A MATTER OF TIME       D+                                                                                                     USA  (97 mi)  1976  d: Vincente Minnelli

No one dies unless we wish them to.                                                                              —Contessa Sanziani (Ingrid Bergman)

Something of a train wreck of a film, a really perplexing example of a project being stolen from the director, as Samuel Z. Arkoff, head of American International Pictures, known mainly for low-budget exploitation B-movies of the 50’s and 60’s, took the final cut out of the hands of Minnelli very early in the post-production process, before the director was able to supervise the dubbing and musical scoring, both of which are utterly atrocious in the final version, while also reducing the length of the film, yet inexplicably adding a prologue and epilogue, where all that’s left are the ruined remains of what could have been.  Based on the 1955 Maurice Druon novella Film of Memory, the film is loosely based on the real life exploits of the infamous Italian eccentric Marchesa Casati, with Druon striking up a relationship with her during her declining years in London while he was stationed there during World War II, becoming a staged version in 1965 with Vivian Leigh entitled La Contessa.  The film went through various changes in title, starting with the book title, then Search for Beauty, then Carmella, then Nina, before finally settling on the current title, which is the name of a song that can be heard in the introduction sung by Liza Minnelli, now a fabulous film star named Nina, but the film is a flashback to when she was an impressionable hotel chambermaid and finds herself living her life through the memories of an aging Contessa (Ingrid Bergman) at the once splendid, now run-down hotel.  Utterly devoted to the impoverished Contessa, who is on the verge of being evicted for nonpayment, her vivid memories serve as an inspiration for Nina to reach for a better life.  Made in Italy, shot on location in Rome and Venice, mostly taking place in a single hotel, though there are fleeting shots of an entirely different world outside (mostly stock travelogue footage of Rome), which we rarely get a chance to see, with Bergman stuck in what is arguably the worst make-up job of her career, looking more like a ghoulish vampire from Transylvania.  The claustrophobic confines of the Contessa’s room is where most of the film takes place, as we get caught up in the psychological mindset of a myriad of memories that intermingle with the present, often becoming indistinguishable, where Nina can be seen taking the place of the Contessa in her own memories, adding a surrealistic flourish of mixed identity that seems to accentuate and embellish the fractured aspects in the aging process.  Liza grew up on the MGM sets with her father, where Hollywood stars and friendly crew members comprised her extended family and helped celebrate her birthdays, so she grew up longing to work with her father, who she describes as “the gentlest, funniest, most charming man I ever met,” but he was 73 when he made what ended up being his final picture, receiving little in the way of career honors during his lifetime.  The film was badly edited, mutilated might be the better word, as Arkoff gutted the picture, described by Pauline Kael as “chopped-up shambles,” opening to terrible reviews, quickly disappearing from theaters, and never released in Britain or France.  Both ended up disowning this film, signing their names to an ad taken out in the trade papers, along with 33 other directors, protesting that their vision had been violated, “The film is a reedited, revised, altered, and distorted form that has nothing to do with the original content.  We are concerned here with principles and ethics.  An artist must be allowed his view, and those who back him must support that view after the fact, as well as before it.”  The names of support included Robert Aldrich, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Peter Bogdanovich, Clarence Brown, Frank Capra, John Cassavetes, Brian De Palma, Allan Dwan, Blake Edwards, Milos Foreman, Bob Fosse, Samuel Fuller, John Hancock, Elia Kazan, Gene Kelly, Irving Lerner, George Lucas, Sidney Lumet, Alan Pakula, Arthur Penn, Otto Preminger, Jean Renoir, Martin Ritt, Herbert Ross, Mark Rydell, Martin Scorsese, Joan Mickland Silver, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder, Gene Wilder, and Robert Wise.

A bizarre father/daughter musical with Liza Minnelli, though it’s not really a musical at all, instead Liza sings these existential songs about making something of her life, a kind of rags to riches fantasy about becoming a huge star, where the entire story is told through the vantage point of another aging star whose memories become mixed with her own, like a Proustian reflection on time and memory, at one point pleading with her, “Please don’t give up your memories… I feel like I’m a part of them now,” Liza Minnelli and Ingrid Bergman in A Matter Of Time 1976 TikTok (52 seconds).  It’s incredible to believe this comes “after” CABARET (1972), shot by the same cinematographer, Geoffrey Unsworth, yet doesn’t have the look of any other Minnelli film, as this is a misfire on all cylinders, jinxed by labor strikes, which extended the length of the shoot, expanded from fourteen weeks to twenty, yet there’s something essentially captivating about the fact it was made at all, as it obviously had meaning for the people involved, including Ingrid Bergman and her daughter Isabella Rossellini making her first film appearance in just a bit part at the end, much more captivating in the barely seen Taviani brother’s movie IL PRATO (The Meadow) (1979), which is genuinely affecting, another film about realizing, with a sense of urgency, just how important it is to be alive.  While this is also the only time Ingrid Bergman and her daughter worked together, it is also the final film of Charles Boyer, who was in an extraordinary amount of pain for his brief appearance as the Contessa’s long estranged husband of forty years, Count Sanziani.  The shoot in Italy came at the height of a series of high-profile kidnappings known as the Years of Lead (Italy), including the kidnapping and killing of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, and several threats were made against Liza Minnelli, but she kept this information from her father and simply increased her personal security team.  It was also the first time Ingrid Bergman returned to Italy for a film since making films together with Roberto Rossellini in the early 50’s (3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman).  While the film has a Cinderella-like structure and fairy tale ending, Liza’s singing style resembles her mother, emphasizing the lyrics through dramatic pauses, “Fairy tales can come true…Into each life a magic moment comes,” the chambermaid Nina is actually discovered by a film director staying at the same hotel, Antonio Vicari, played by Gabriele Ferzetti, the star of Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960), who is roundly criticized by the thoroughly incensed room service maid after spontaneously pouncing on her while he’s busily attempting to construct a grand rape scene for his movie finale, which is causing him no end of frustrations, Watch “A Matter of Time” | The Front Row | The New Yorker YouTube (4:58).  But the storyline goes through the Countess, where her world unravels through a kind of memory time traveling, loaded with chaotic flashbacks and fantasies, living in the upper crust of society, where she is literally worshipped wherever she goes, usually in the company of fabulously wealthy men, as she’s wined and dined and swept through a world of casinos and châteaus, staying in only the finest hotels of Europe where she’s catered to like royalty, yet this world only exists in her mind, consumed by the passions of her past, where her entire raison d’être is to feel alive.  Years ago, the Contessa left her husband for another man, still fixated on this long gone affair, one of many treatments of adultery in Minnelli films, like a Madame Bovary obsession, showing the huge costs, as not only did it wreck the Contessa’s marriage, but it may have driven her to live in the past.

Nina is drawn into this cobwebbed imagination, fixated on her experiences, utterly spellbound by the seductive detail of her recollections, as she gradually begins to imagine herself inhabiting the Contessa’s past, often placing herself in the luxurious position of the Countess.  This structure actually resembles the previous Minnelli film, ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (1970), where a woman’s memories are recreated under a hypnotic state by her treating psychiatrist, causing the doctor to fall in love, not with the woman he’s treating, but the woman she used to be, becoming increasingly interested in taking possession of her past.  A lamentable costume drama, the horrible dubbing and intrusive aspect of oversaturated music makes it difficult to take any of this seriously, confounded by its lack of narrative cohesion, as some of the dialogue seems to refer back to things we never see, while long minutes of screen time are eaten up with rambling subplots that go nowhere.  Heavily overstylized and at times unhinged, with exaggerated theatrics veering into camp, the look of the film makes it seem like it was filmed in a cave, as the colors are dull instead of vibrant, where the passage of time has not done this film any favors, as it’s only lost more of its luster.  The subject of aging and death are a central premise of the film, as the Contessa is an eccentric woman completely out of touch with the contemporary world, like The Madwoman of Chaillot, or Gloria Swanson’s aging Norma Desmond in SUNSET BLVD. (1950), finding herself detached from reality, verging on madness, where it’s hard not to connect this to the director’s own lingering obsessions.  In Mark Griffin’s biography of Vincente Minnelli, A Hundred or More Hidden Things, Liza’s half-sister Lorna Luft recalls that Minnelli was already in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.  The postproduction problems only accentuate this element of disillusionment, as the film itself suffers from its own fractured existence.  Yet what Nina sees is someone who served as a muse for artists, and a source of inspiration for great minds, asking for little in return except to live her life free of tedium and banalities.  In lucid moments, she views Nina as her apprentice, offering teachable moments, as she hands out good advice, such as “be yourself—the world worships an original,” as nobody wants a copy, yet at the same time she is shown training Nina how to get jewelry from boyfriends.  What she’s really doing is transferring the largesse of her life into Nina’s suffocating existence, breathing new life into her, as if resuscitating her lost dreams, Liza Minnelli - The Me I Haven't Met Yet (VERY RARE SONG!) YouTube (2: 45).  Of course, as the opening song suggests, it only takes a moment, and that supposedly innocuous coincidence occurs without explanation, it just happens, and everything changes afterwards.  While lingering on issues of death, what this film really wants to convey is the essential nature of new beginnings, perhaps with the belief that the director’s films would live on in future generations, as if passing the torch, using his own daughter to emphasize how this works, as her film character is completely transformed overnight into a major star, which is how it often happens.  There is only one staggering sequence in this film, a memorable moment of Liza singing a smoky, jazz-tinged rendition of George Gershwin’s Do It Again, Liza Minnelli sings Do It Again YouTube (3:31), which is oddly fascinating, one of her mother’s most exquisite songs, but done quite differently, Judy Garland ' Do It Again' - YouTube (4:44), exquisitely shot in the opulence of Venice’s Palazzo Ca’ Rezzonico, like something right out of CABARET, literally pulsing with life and reverberating with an intoxicated feeling.