The Golden Dawn Page |
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Yes, we're still constructing, but let's try this on for size.
If you don't like Golden Dawn, you'll be sure not to like The Madam Satan Page
... or just check out my Home Page
Quite possibly the world's most offensive film musical,
Golden Dawn is the rarest of the rare - a Viennese styled operetta set in colonial Africa.
Dawn tells the musical story of a young native princess who was so loved by the gods, they permitted her to be born without the indignity of being black. Of course, when she falls in love with a white colonial, thus breaking the ultimate tabu of miscengenation (mixed-racial coupling) all hell breaks loose.
Oh yes, and they're perfectly serious about it all, which of course makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??????????!!!!!!!
SERIOUS????? How could they have possibly been serious in a film where arias are applauded onscreen by the onlookers, where the villain Shep Keyes, impersonated by Noah Beery in badly applied, half sweated-off but "serious" {i.e., not minstrel style} blackface sings a love song to his whip, Vivienne "Dawn" Segal sings of her "Bwanna" and Alice Gentle sums up the whole sorry tale with her opening tirade, "Africa Smiles No More".
Indeed. This page is a celebration of one of the more singular motion picture events, Warner Bros.'s screen adaptation of the Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, Emmerich Kalman & Herbert Stothart (moderate) stage success, The Golden Dawn. Embalmed onscreen at the tail end of the initial film musical blitz of 1929-30, Golden Dawn tells the story of ...
well, to give away more of the plot would be to rob the uninitiated of ninety of the most jawdropping minutes in film history. But to give you a hint of the ineptness of director Ray Enright and screenwriter Walter Anthony, one of the film's title cards boldly announces:
"There was no joy among the natives; A draught was destroying them"
... and there's no hint of a breeze or a Budweiser within miles!
What follows are some links, quotes, images, and (hopefully - eventually) WAV files of some of the more priceless moments. If you like what you see, want more, or have other information/suggestions, e-mail me ... or check out my personal web page.
Happy browsing!
The Broadway Production
The Golden Dawn opened on November 30, 1927 as the inaugural attraction at producer Arthur Hammerstein's theatre. Hammerstein's was actually named for Arthur's father, the original Oscar Hammerstein. Like most of Arthur's offerings at his ill-fated house, this would be a family affair.
The show was co-directed by Arthur's nephew Reginald and it's co-librettist was Reggie's brother Oscar Hammerstein 2nd. Perhaps most frightening of all is the fact that this show premiered a mere four weeks before Oscar's epochal Show Boat.
Although a financial and critical success, the show had an undistinguished six month run, closing after 184 performances. The house would know no run-away hits, although the succeeding attractions, Helen Kane's star-making introduction of "I Wanna Be Loved By You" in Good Boy and
Helen Morgan's starring turn in Sweet Adeline with original "Whip Song" singer Robert Chisholm would both eek out 200+ performance runs.
Like his arch-rival Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Arthur would lose his shirt in the stock market crash,
make a brief but disastrous attempt at producing movies and finally lose his theatre before the mortar fully hardened.
Ziegfeld, of course got an extra year coming and going on Arthur and lost his theatre in July, 1932 by dying.
Hammerstein merely declared bankrupcy in early 1931 following his last disastrous entry, Ballyhoo. Changing its name to the Manhattan, the theatre presented three attractions by independent producers during 1931 & 32 - all flops.
It wasn't until Ed Sullivan gained control of the house as the studio for his long-running television show of the 50s, 60s & early 70s and subsequently by the building's current occupant, David Letterman that the space found its niche.
Anyway, for more Broadway info:
Credits
Golden Dawn - on film
Photo Gallery
Be sure to read Richard Barrios' history/critique in his acclaimed & EXHAUSTIVE analysis of the coming of music to film,
A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film
©1995, Oxford University Press, New York, 493 p. $21.95.
... more to come ...
Rev. 10/24/2006
Created in 1997, © by Christopher S. Connelly.
All rights reserved.