Leon Errol Series: GOOD MORNING, EVE! (1934)

GOOD MORNING, EVE! (1934 Vitaphone Short) Starring Leon Errol as Adam, June MacCloy as Eve, Vernon Dent as Nero, Maxine Doyle as Queen Guinevere, Fred Toones as Porter, Wild Bill Elliott as Lancelot, Mildred Dixon as Chorine, Harry Seymour as Harold.  Written by Cyrus Woods, Eddie Moran and A. Dorian Otvos.  Directed by Roy Mack.


The introduction to our Leon Errol Salute Series is at this link.


On a bright day in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve enjoy the sunshine.  While Adam lounges in his fig leaves and spats, Eve prepares their decidedly vegetarian lunch. 

Leon Errol, the first man on earth!  

Adam bemoans the lack of variety in their diet, and he and Eve can't resist adding an apple despite a talking serpent's warning.

y

Perhaps they should have been more appreciative of the tip-off: after their meal the couple goes on a surreal journey through the millenniums, passing through Emperor Nero's talent contest and King Arthur's court before ending up on a 1934 beach via airplane(!)--where singing Harold is about to marry his fifth wife and Leon ogles the bathing-suited beauties in front of his first.  (Hey, she'd have to be--right?)

A rare chance to see our boy Leon in color, GOOD MORNING, EVE! is a gloriously silly last gasp for racy content before the Breen PCA began seriously enforcing the Hays Code (released in September 1934).  The third three-strip Technicolor short (Errol's SERVICE WITH A SMILE and LA CUCARACHA both beat it to theatres by three weeks), GOOD MORNING EVE! looks amazing and makes little sense. 

A hillbilly band dressed in togas, accompanying Nero's fiddling?  Sir Lancelot winning a swordfight with another of King Arthur's finest--needing Leon's help to do it?  Yes and yes, accompanied in all eras by lovely ladies wearing the shortest shorts allowed, most prominently when we finally reach 1934--of course.

As for our boy Rubberlegs, there's nary a drop of alcohol to imbibe, and no really memorable lines.  On the plus side, he gets several decent physical gags, and plenty of lovely ladies half his age to ogle.  Naturally, Eve turns out to be just as unforgiving of that wandering eye as future RKO wives would be.

Although he could always make the most out of mediocre material, one wishes Leon had better jokes to carry to the finish line here.  Still, GOOD MORNING, EVE! has plenty of trashy pleasures, and lots of familiar faces to spot.   Three Stooges mainstay Vernon Dent makes an appropriately bizarre Nero, future Western mainstay "Wild" Bill Elliott is that uncredited Sir Lancelot, and Gwinevere is played by the future Mrs. William Witney, Maxine Doyle.

An Eve thirty years younger than our Adam (but still unable to keep Leon's full attention), June MacCloy isn't the only scantily clad lovely here.   Yes, the first woman on earth has plenty of competition as the centuries pass.  Busby Berkeley regulars Donna Mae Roberts, Mildred Dixon, Loretta Andrews and Martha Merrill are all recognizable--Dixon on the beach, the others in Nero's Rome.  While the numbers aren't as geometrically complex as Berkeley's (how could they be?) they're fun, and never lacking for eye candy to draw your attention.

The novely of seeing Leon Errol in color is far more memorable than the script, but if GOOD MORNING, EVE! isn't exactly exceptional stuff, it never wears out its welcome in nineteen garish and sometimes titillating minutes.  Worth seeing for historical value and contains a decent number of laughs for its runtime.  Then there's the fun of spotting all those familiar faces--there's a few I didn't mention above, so check it out for yourself.  Oh, and there's a twist ending that I won't spoil here, but could only have happened in a pre-Code.    (*** out of four)

GOOD MORNING, EVE! occasionally airs on Turner Classic Movies, and is available on DVD in the Vitaphone Cavalcade of Musical Comedy Shorts collection, though the price is steep--it's a six disc set.

Film Review: HELLFIRE (1949)

"Why the Hell isn't this on DVD yet?" -- Number 53


HELLFIRE (1949 Republic) Starring Wild Bill Elliott, Marie Windsor, Forrest Tucker, Jim Davis, Paul Fix, Grant Withers, Emory Parnell, H. B. Warner.  Directed by R. G. Springsteen.

Elliott is a crooked cardsharp whose life is spared when minister Warner takes a bullet meant for the gambler.  In gratitude Elliott vows to honor Warner’s dying wish: that he not only raise the funds needed to build Warner’s church, but do it strictly “by the Good Book”.  Meanwhile female bandit Windsor is being sought by marshal Tucker and vengeful Davis with a $5,000 reward on her head.   Elliott sees the reward money as the means to his goal, but his newfound vow requires non-violent, persuasive methods of capture, a limitation her other pursuers lack.

“Man by his misdeeds kindles his own hellfire”.  So begins this unusual western that combines born again Christianity with secular feminism, personified respectively by Elliott and Windsor as each tries to atone.   One of the most popular stars in the genre throughout the 1940’s, Elliott was never the most versatile actor, but his screen presence was undeniable.  He made a living playing “peaceable” men who were forced into violence; the twist in HELLFIRE being that Elliott is far from serene at the outset.  In fact, he is seen throwing the first punches before and after his awakening.  Becoming peaceable is a constant struggle for this reformed gambler.

The role of outlaw Doll Brown normally would have gone to an actress already under contact to Republic (I.e. Adrian Booth or Adele Mara) but Marie Windsor was cast at Elliott’s insistence.  An expert horsewoman, she did most of her own stunts.  Windsor normally played beautiful bad girls.  In HELLFIRE she’s been pushed to the wrong side of the law in her quest to find her sister who, unbeknownst to her, is married to Tucker.   Windsor looks decidedly unfeminine at the outset, “rides alone” by choice and proves she’s the equal of any man on horseback and with a gun ( i.e. killing Davis’ brother).   Windsor finally flashes her charming side to evade the marshal when he tracks her down, and screenwriters Dorell and Stuart McGowan make the point that going straight is especially difficult is for a female outlaw.  Her attempt to reform consists of “honest” work singing and dressing suggestively in a saloon (“where else would a single woman find employment?").  



A western about an outlaw who gets religion sounds like a preachy, tiresome endeavor, but director Springsteen and the McGowans deftly evade the potential pitfalls.  Elliott is no more successful at raising donations from townspeople than Warner is, with his fundraising attempts meeting indifference and contempt in roughly equal measure for most of the film.  His reception improves, but at HELLFIRE‘s end the church remains unbuilt.  The influence of Christianity is shown to be positive (Elliott's life is definitely changed for the better) but limited.  He abandons liquor and gambling but not his gun.  Two out of three ain't bad?

Genre stalwarts Tucker, Davis, Fix and Withers provide fine support, but this show belongs to Elliott and Windsor, and it’s easy to see why both cited HELLFIRE as a personal favorite.  According to Springsteen, Elliott told him HELLFIRE was “the best picture I’ve ever done”.   I agree, and Windsor joins him in giving a career-best performance.  In the end it‘s left up to the viewer whether Windsor‘s life was saved or just her soul.     

So....why isn't this on DVD yet?

As I noted in reviewing ROCK ISLAND TRAIL and CALIFORNIA PASSAGE, Republic's westerns of the late 1940's and 1950's remain largely unreleased on DVD, despite fairly frequent showings over the past decade on Encore's Westerns Channel.  

Why it should be on DVD:

Puzzling why it isn't.  It is arguably Elliott's best remembered and most popular film with modern audiences, and one of Windsor's as well.  

It may not be available on DVD yet, but this Trucolor western is now available for streaming on Netflix Instant.  Well worth watching, HELLFIRE is a true gem and arguably the most glaring DVD omission from Republic.