Hallelujah I'm a Bum

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum is the only film Al Jolson did in which he eschewed his blackface completely. He should only have done it earlier and stuck to it.

This film was an experiment in something the producers call "rhyming dialog" Today I think it would be called rap. Audiences didn't really take to it in 1933, but today's audience would probably appreciate it more.

A knowledge of history would help. Until the summer of 1932, New York City had a mayor who was something of a ladies' man whose favorite nightspot was a nightclub right in Central Park. It hasn't been there since the late thirties, Tavern on the Green is a poor substitute. Mayor James J. Walker's favorite dining spot was the Central Park Casino. And many homeless and jobless lived in Central Park in their own makeshift city as the recent film Cinderella Man so aptly demonstrated to today's audience.

Frank Morgan before he became typecast as Mr. Befuddlement is the Mayor of New York. And Al Jolson is the unofficial mayor of Central Park. Through a chain of circumstances they both become involved with the same girl, Madge Evans.

Rodgers and Hart wrote two songs in addition to the rhyming dialog, the title song and You Are Too Beautiful. The latter is a nice romantic ballad that Jolson delivers well. Later on in the 1940s both Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra had primo versions of this song as well.

In Great Britain the film was released as Hallelujah I'm a Tramp because in the British Isles, the word bum has a different connotation.

It's an enjoyable film today if you can catch it by all means do so.