OVP: Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Film: Cabin in the Sky (1943)
Stars: Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Happiness is a Thing Called Joe")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lena Horne-click here to learn more about Ms. Horne (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

It's not entirely clear if MGM, when it signed Lena Horne, had any intention of turning her into a proper movie star.  Though she was the first black performer signed to a legitimate star contract, the studio wasn't able to give her significant roles in major films due to laws in the South that forbade black performers from appearing in non-stereotypical parts (such as servants or slaves).  This meant that Horne only had one significant role in her time at MGM (last week's film, Stormy Weather, where she got the lead she was at Fox), as Georgia Brown in the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, a very early film in the career of Vincente Minnelli.  We'll talk more about the rest of Horne's career at MGM next week, but as a film actress in Classical Hollywood, this was the biggest moment of her time at the studio that made it its business to ensure its contract players became stars.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is a musical-comedy, and a picture with something of a familiar premise, though an enjoyable one.  Here we have Little Joe (Anderson), a gambler who is married to a sainted woman named Petunia (Waters).  Little Joe is always on the wrong side of the law, gambling and finding himself in trouble, so when he dies, he is sentenced to go to hell.  However, Petunia begs the lord to spare him, and so Little Joe is given six months to change his ways, but there's a catch-he won't have any memory of the afterlife, and such must find his way by himself.  An angel (Kenneth Spencer) and a demon (Rex Ingram) guide him toward their own sides, with Petunia being a strong influence, but soon Joe is no match for the demon's whiles of money and a sexy new girlfriend, Georgia Brown (Horne).  The film ends with Little Joe realizing that he loves Petunia, but it's too late-he's going to hell while she's going to heaven.  A repentant Georgia Brown gets Little Joe into heaven, but it turns out it's all been a dream-Little Joe is back with Petunia, and vows to live a decent life from now on.

The film is brimming with cliche, but honestly, you will not care because Cabin in the Sky is amazing.  I loved it.  The performances are interesting, with snappy one-liners (the scene where Horne & Waters, now dressed like a showgirl, throw shade at each other is delicious), and the musical numbers are spectacular.  I don't know a lot about Ethel Waters as a performer-I've never seen her most famous role, as Dicey in Pinky (for which she was nominated for an Oscar), but she nails this part.  At times saintly, at other times sexy as hell (the high kicks!), she steals the entire damn movie and has both actorly and movie star charisma to match.  Real talk-I don't understand why we don't talk about Waters as a performer more often, because if she was capable of this, it's a great tragedy that she never was afforded more significant roles (and you can bet Pinky just got bumped up on my "to do" list).

Horne is a supporting part, despite third billing, but she's having a grand time here.  She gets to play a vixen (there's a famous deleted scene where she's singing in a bubble bath that was cut by the censors), and she is having a blast doing it.  Her musical number of "Honey in the Honeycomb" is flirty & fun, and she is great as the woman trying to sway Little Joe down the wrong path.  But the best musical number in the film belongs to Waters, singing "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe."  It says something about Waters that this tune has been covered by everyone from Peggy Lee to Judy Garland to Bette Midler (some of the great singers of the American songbook), but I've never heard it sung with as much meaning and passion as I did Waters.  The film lost to the equally classic "You'll Never Know" by the magnificent Alice Faye (we talked about this movie here, and man is this going to be a tough OVP), but honestly-it's just one of many magical moments in a film that is way better than its reputation.  Horne should have become a star off of this-next week we will explore what happened when that didn't occur.