Kid Millions

Director: Roy Del Ruth, Willy Pogany Roy Del Ruth

Overview

Brooklyn tugboat worker Eddie (Eddie Cantor), bullied and cowed by his tough-guy stepfather and stepbrothers (a la Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother), inherits $77 million from his uncle, an Egyptologist. Con artist Dot (Ethel Merman) wants to get her lunchhooks on the money, and to this end offers herself as Eddie's adopted mother (never mind that she's nearly 20 years younger), intending to have her thuggish brother Louie (Warren Hymer) bump off our hero at the first opportunity. The nonsensical plotline ends up with Eddie, Dot, Louie, pompous Southern colonel Larrabee (Berton Churchill), and nominal romantic leads Jerry (George Murphy in his film debut) and Jane (Ann Sothern) trapped in the palace of Arab potentate Mulhulla (Paul Harvey). The better-than-average comic banter includes some funny bits between Cantor and Eve Sully, of the comedy team of "Block and Sully" (her husband-partner Jesse Block is also in the picture, but just barely). Spotted among the featured players in Kid Millions are such "Our Gang" members as Stymie Beard, Scotty Beckett and Tommy Bond, and there's a specialty by the Nicholas Brothers during Cantor's obligatory "blackface" number; and yes, that's Lucille Ball as a blonde Goldwyn Girl in the harem sequence. PS: According to Ethel Merman, the film's elaborate Technicolor ice-cream factory finale, in which Eddie allows dozens of tenement kids to gorge themselves on his tasty confections, posed censorship problems: while producer Sam Goldwyn was allowed to show the little boys with comically extended stomachs, he was not permitted to do so with the little girls, for fear that the audience might think the female moppets were pregnant!

Product Details

Release Date:	04/09/2013
UPC:	0883316737132
Original Release:	1934
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	43,419

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Eddie Cantor	Eddie Wilson Jr.
Ann Sothern	Joan Larrabee
Ethel Merman	Dot Clark
George Murphy	Jerry Lane
Jesse Block	Ben Ali
Eve Sully	Fanya
Berton Churchill	Col. Larrabee
Warren Hymer	Louie the Lug
Paul Harvey	Sheik Mulhulla
Otto Hoffman	Khoot
Doris Davenport	Toots
Edgar Kennedy	Herman,Pop
Stanley Fields	Oscar
John Kelly	Adolph
Guy Usher	William Slade
Caryl Lincoln	Actor
Stymie Beard	Stymie
Henry Kolker	Attorney
Mary Lange	Actor
Tommy Bond	Tommy
Leonard Kibrick	Leonard
William Arnold	Steward
Billy Seay	Actor
Harry C. Bradley	Bartender
Edward Peil Sr.	Assistant Bartender
Gwen Seager	Actor
Harry Ernest	Page Boy
Eddie Arden	Busboy
Ed Mortimer	Ship's Officer
Zack Williams	Slave
Everett Brown	Slave
Barbara Pepper	Actor
Fred Warren	Spieler
Harrison Greene	Spieler
Wanda Perry	Actor
George Regas	Attendant
Noble Johnson	Attendant,Torturer,Actor
Lon Poff	Recorder
Mickey Rentschler	Actor
Constantine Romanoff	Torturer
Ivan Linow	Warrior
Helen Wood	1934 Goldwyn Girl
Lalo Encinas	Warrior
Budd Fine	Warrior
Mary Carey	Actor
Leo Willis	Warrior
Larry Fisher	Warrior
Sam Hayes	Eddie's Announcer
John Collum	Actor
Malcolm Waite	Trumpeteer
Bob Reeves	Trumpeteer
Lynne Carver	Actor,Native Woman
Clarence Muse	Col. Witherspoon
Mary Dix	Actor
Steve Clemente	Desert Rider
Art Mix	Desert Rider
Silver Harr	Desert Rider
Wally Albright	Children on Tug
M. Rourie	Desert Rider
Bob Kortman	Desert Rider
Irene Bentley	Actor
Lucille Ball	A 1934 Goidwyn Girl
Robert Ellis	Desert Rider
Bonnie Bannon	Actor
Theodore Lorch	Native Fakir
Bobbie La Manche	Native Boy
Bobby Jordan	Tourist
J. Macher	Native
John Dowd	Native
Charles D. Hall	Native
Jane Hamilton	Actor
Helen Ferguson	Actor
Gail Goodson	Actor

Technical Credits

Arthur Sheekman

Nat Perrin

Nunnally Johnson

Roy Del Ruth	Director
Arthur Sheekman	Screenwriter
Nat Perrin	Screenwriter
Nunnally Johnson	Screenwriter
Samuel Goldwyn	Producer
Willy Pogany	Director

Editorial Reviews

Stage and radio comic Eddie Cantor found a welcome home on the silver screen in the 1930s, but his films haven't proven as timeless as the best of other comic talents like the Marx Brothers or W.C. Fields. Still, his films tend to offer more than a fair share of delights and Kid Millions is a lot of fun, even if it's dated and titanically inconsequential. The script is sheer folderol, a coat rack on which to hang a number of jokes (some unbearably corny), vaudeville routines, physical schticks, and musical numbers. The script is so unimportant that the conflict involving juvenile George Murphy and ingénue (!) Ann Sothern is simply dropped without resolution and a minstrel show and the yummy Technicolor ending are shoehorned in with neither rhyme nor reason. Fortunately, Cantor and company provide enough entertainment to make up for the inferior material. Cantor is not to everyone's taste, especially when he dons blackface (as he habitually does), but his spirited milquetoast persona served him well and he has an undeniably engaging presence and an unerring delivery. He's joined by a cast that's almost all aces: In addition to Sothern and Murphy, Ethel Merman is on hand to sock across some songs, Eve Sully to knock off some jokes, and some very young Nicholas Brothers to provide fancy footwork. Seymour Felix's choreography tries very hard to emulate Busby Berkeley; it doesn't come close, but it's more than adequate and the bizarre finale is definitely a treat. Put together with spit and glue, Kid Millions is not great filmmaking, but -- blackface aside -- it's quite entertaining.