llewis001 All the previous reviews/critiques are probably right-on. I was happy to see the film because it presented a bit of theatrical history, showing something of what minstrel shows were like, especially in the opening "Gentlemen Be Seated" bit. Of course, there are similar historical pieces in other movies as well. I don't know that I had ever seen Benny Fields before, although he apparently had done many television appearances in the past, so I was curious to see him and hear him sing. Having seen this film, I rather understand why Ralph Meeker was chosen to play Fields in "Somebody Loves Me" opposite Betty Hutton and I now appreciate that bit of casting.

showtrmp Low-budget early B musical of 1940 that makes you alternately laugh and cringe at the datedness and the cheery, seemingly unconscious racism. Benny Fields stars as Dixie Boy Johnson, a supposedly world-famous minstrel-show performer whose wife dies during childbirth on the very night of his biggest opening yet. He reacts to this by letting his mouth droop, shifting his cheek muscles slightly, and embarking on a five-year booze-and-gambling fest across Europe. A convenient boating accident has the rest of the world thinking him dead; he changes his name and hides out in California, sending flowers to his abandoned daughter every year on her birthday and hovering in the background as she prepares to become a star herself. When she makes her own minstrel-show debut (playing his part in a revival of his big hit!) he's in the wings silently cheering her on; he eventually sneaks onstage (blackface and all), reveals himself to his daughter (how does she recognize him?) and the two of them duet on his signature song, which he was performing the night his wife died. The maudlin tearjerking would send Joan Crawford into gales of hysterical laughter.Fields doesn't convince as a headliner; he sings in a monotonous croon that would put Mel Torme to sleep and his acting is a series of shrugs. As if to compensate, Judy Clark (playing his supposedly destined-for-stardom daughter) is so plucky and perky and cheerful, by gum, she makes "Oklahoma" seem like "Sweeney Todd." Gladys George has a beautiful, trained speaking voice; she brings as much color and variety to her functional role as she can.Moviegoers wanting to see some historical glimpses of minstrel-show musical staging (both of you) will also be disappointed; the Oscar-nominated(???) score rarely rises to mediocre, and the camera never seems to be in the right place during the dances. The final big production number is staged on an ugly set of steps; the chorus members file onto each step and spend the whole song crossing from one side of the stage to the other and back again. This movie certainly doesn't make anyone mourn the loss of the minstrel-show form; most modern audiences will greet the end of the picture with audible relief.

marcslope The great Al himself might have pounced on the role of a great blackface minstrel singer who, after his wife dies in childbirth, becomes bitter and resentful, leaves his infant daughter with friends, tours in minstrelsy, is supposedly lost in the Morro Castle disaster at sea, and miraculously returns to be reunited with his now-grown-up little girl, who is opening in a brand-new 1944 minstrel show. The movie blithely pretends that minstrel shows are still up-to-date and wildly popular, and thus exists in a kind of vacuum. The fine Hollywood songwriter Harry Revel, who had seen better days, wrote the very derivative melodies, which were scored by no less than Ferde Grofe (of the "Grand Canyon Suite"), and it looks like the Grade-Z studio, PRC, actually spent some money on the sets and costumes, if not the cast, which consists mostly of folks on the way up or down. Gladys George, an actual Best Actress Oscar nominee back when (for "Valiant is the Word for Carrie"), lends some minimal class, and Roscoe Karns gets to display more range than his A pictures granted him; even a young, full-voiced John Raitt turns up, though he's unrecognizable in blackface. Benny Fields is, as other posters have noted, no actor and not the best vocalizer, either, but he does convey some sincerity, and it's kind of touching to see such an unappetizing and over-the-hill guy attempt a conventional leading man role. Judy Clark, as his daughter, has the pizazz and confidence of an A-picture starlet. If you can stomach all the blackface (and there's a lot of it) and the clichés piling up, you'll be pleased at the picture's efficiency and unpretentiousness. And watching a "Mammy"-"Sonny Boy"-style story nearly 20 years after it went out fashion is sort of fascinating.

Mart Sander As cheap musicals go, it's not bad. The subject matter is respectable, avoiding unnecessary comedy that B-musicals of the mid forties boosted. The problem appears to be casting. For Benny Fields this is his only major dramatic lead in films, and one can easily understand, why. He is a relatively unexciting old man with no remarkable talents to showcase. He does sing, but his voice is very soft and definitely not one that would carry in a live theatre. Judy Clark is so perk that it makes your eyes hurt, and as natural as Duracel bunny. How did a quality actress like Gladys George get lost in that vehicle, is a minor mystery. Said all that, the film is quite entertaining, and the music (not meaning some well-known standards that get used but the original score) is better than is usual for a small time musical. Plus it's a reasonably short flick that doesn't let you get bored. It's also very nice to look at a good old fashioned, dignified minstrel show. Makes you wonder what the world would be like if minstrels hadn't paved the way to making black music part of our everyday life.