Golden Dawn (film)

Infobox Film
name = Golden Dawn (1930)

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producer =
director = Ray Enright
writer = Walter Anthony
based on the operetta by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach.
starring = Walter Woolf King
Vivienne Segal
Alice Gentle
Noah Beery
music = Herbert Stothart
Emmerich Kálmán
Rex Dunn, Robert Stolz
cinematography = Frank B. Good
Devereaux Jennings "(Technicolor)"
editing =
distributor = Warner Bros.
country = USA
released = June 14, 1930
runtime = 83 min.
language = English
imdb_id = 0021405|

"Golden Dawn" is a 1930 musical operetta film photographed entirely in Technicolor.The film is based on the semi-hit stage musical of the same name and boasts lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.

ongs

* "Africa Smiles No More" (Sung by Alice Gentle)
* "The Whip" (Sung by Noah Beery twice)
* "My Bwanna" (Sung by Vivienne Segal and chorus; Reprised by Vivienne Segal)
* "We Two" (Sung by Marion Byron and Dick Henderson)
* "Dawn" (Sung by Walter Woolf King; Reprised by a chorus during finale)
* "Mooda's Song" (Sung by Alice Gentle)
* "My Heart's Love Call" (Sung by Walter Woolf King)
* "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (Sung by the British exchange prisoners)
* "In a Jungle Bungalow" (Sung by Lupino Lane and chorus; Danced to by Lupino Lane)
* "A Tiger" (Sung and danced to by Marion Byron and Lee Moran; Reprised by Marion Byron)
* "Mulungu Thabu" (Sung by chorus with spoken interjections by Nigel de Brulier)
* " what's up" ( sung by chorus)

Trivia

Noah Beery recorded "The Whip" for Brunswick Records along with a song from "Song of the Flame" (1930), another Warner Bros. musical he had recently appeared in.

Whenever the film is mentioned today in film reference books and TV/movie guides, it receives unanimously scathing reviews, most notably for its racism and its unintentionally funny performances. Beery not only plays his role in blackface, but also plays it with the type of Deep South accent one would find in characters such as Mammy in "Gone with the Wind", despite the fact that he is supposed to be playing an African chieftain. Humorously snide comments of unintended double entendre have also been made over Beery's "The Whip". [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195088115]

Preservation

The film survives only in a black and white copy made in the 1950s for television.

References

Barrios, Richard "A Song in the Dark" (Oxford, 1995)