The flick is also worth noting for the appearance of two silent film comedians, Langdon and mustachioed Chester Conklin as a carriage driver. Langdon's Egghead is a particularly arresting creation. Railing against the park bums' indolence and the "plutocrat" rich (first time he sees the amnesiac June, he charges, "She dresses like a capitalist!"), he nonetheless comes across as engagingly harmless and loyal to his friends. Hard to imagine a similar character being treated much the same way in any other era in movie history.
Hallelujah reportedly didn't do well at the box office - in part, I suspect, because its ending doesn't follow the usual musical romantic comedy dictates. When June gets her memory back, we wait for her to remember her time spent with her goodhearted rescuer, only it never happens. Still, director Milestone (better known for All Quiet on the Western Front and The Front Page) includes some sharp visual moments for those fascinated by Depression Era cinema.
In one sequence, our hero temporarily comes into possession of a thousand dollar bill, which throws his Central Park community into a greedy frenzy. The subsequent montage of demanding hobo faces looks as grim as anything directed by Fritz Lang, though, happily, Jolson defuses this volatile situation with a song. In a later scene, we're shown Bumper and his tagalong buddy Acorn at their short-lived bank jobs. We're introduced to them through an extended tracking shot which starts at one end of the bank where two millionaires are talking, moves down to considerably less flush bank customers and then slides over to the tellers who don't have a spare buck to their name. The more things change . . .
MGM's DVD, which was released back in 2002 and currently can be gotten fairly cheaply, is a no-frills affair. Picture quality is pretty high for a largely forgotten early '30s artifact, though the sound is flatter than it should be, particularly for a musical. But this is the movie I'll want to think of when I remember Al Jolson: an appealing performance - and not a single frame of blackface to be found!
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