Show Business

The copy I saw of "Show Business" was very flawed and I hope you can find a better one than the one on YouTube. The picture was scratchy, the sound tinny and whoever posted it stuck a giant watermark across the screen! Even worse is that they removed a blackface segment because it might offend. I personally hate censorship and wish they'd instead given a prologue discussing this scene instead of just removing it.

The story is about the burlesque singing and dancing team of Eddie and George (Eddie Cantor and George Murphy). Soon they meet up with Joan and Nancy (Joan Davis and Nancy Kelly) and they are so good they're able to move up to vaudeville. Things are just fine until George and Nancy marry. On the day their daughter is born, a STUPID misunderstanding tears them apart and the rest of the film is predictable....as years pass, you know eventually they'll get back together.

A serious problem for me was that I didn't care about George and Nancy. Their histrionics really took away from what I loved.... Eddie and Joan. They were wonderful together....just like they'd been in previous films. In hindsight, I really wish they film had just been about them and the other two written out of the picture. Worth seeing despite this...but not exactly a must-see picture.