Hallelujah I’m a Bum **** (1933, Al Jolson, Madge Evans, Frank Morgan, Harry Langdon) – Classic Movie Review 9603

‘BUCK UP! LOOK UP! CHEER UP!… SING!’

Director Lewis Milestone’s 1933 Hallelujah I’m a Bum had to be urgently retitled Hallelujah I’m a Tramp in the UK, where it was released in a version where the soundtrack is erased whenever the word ‘bum’ is sung! The British Board of Film Censors refused to pass the film unless the title was changed. Well, that’s a bummer then.

It is an appealing Great Depression fantasy, told in rhyme, about a tramp called Bumper (Al Jolson) who leads New York’s bums opposed to work. His followers include Egghead (Harry Langdon), Sunday (Chester Conklin), Acorn (Edgar Connor), The General (Victor Potel), Orlando (Tammany Young), Apple Mary (Dorothea Wolbert) and Ma Sunday (Louise Carver).

[Spoiler alert] Bumper’s idol is New York Mayor John Hastings (Frank Morgan), whose life he saved. Bumper cleans and polishes himself for an amnesiac woman, the mayor’s girlfriend June (Madge Evans) when he falls in love with her after rescuing her from a suicide attempt. But, when her memory returns, he goes back to his New York Central Park life among the hobos.

There is a witty screenplay by S N Behrman (adaptation) and Ben Hecht (original story), as well as five smashing songs (including ‘I Gotta Get Back to New York’, sung by Al Jolson) and rhymes by Richard Rodgers and Laurenz Hart (who briefly shoot in to the picture in acting cameos as Photographer’s Assistant and Bank Teller). Jolson, Harry Langdon, Madge Evans, Frank Morgan and Chester Conklin lead the hit performances.

The edited version is called The Heart of New York, as it was reissued in 1939, and it was reissued in 1953 as Lazy Bones.

It was broadcast by W2XBS, New York City, on 5 July 1939, two months after it started regular service and was the first Hollywood feature to be shown on regularly scheduled US television.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9603

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