Cantor Midnight Folic

[drednm]

Interesting Eddie Cantor short.

[Ray Faiola]

A friend of mine found a 35mm print of this in a Jersey movie house office closet. I restored the soundtrack and we had new 16mm prints made. Not sure where it appears on DVD.

[Donald Binks]

Thanks for posting Ed.

Comments:

It appears very spontaneous and even though the main title says it was photographed in a studio, it certainly gives every appearance of being at a night club.

The songs are all rather silly, but no sillier than today's I suppose. "Sound engineers" would be horrified that the orchestra and Mr. Cantor can get away without any means of amplification. Funny about that. In the old days, if you couldn't sing above an orchestra, you just weren't hired. Nowadays even drums are amplified - (no reason for so doing has been submitted to me as yet.)

People used to dress to go out. Now one would be lucky to see a gent even in a collar and tie.

Mr. Cantor must have been able to exist without much sleep. He was in "Whoopee" for two shows a day and then appearing nightly in a night club!

Pity about the blackface - this film would be blacklisted, pardon me, personlisted by the PC brigade methinks.

[drednm]

Some sources say this was "lost" for decades. An interesting curio to be sure. Cantor was tireless!

[vitaphone]

Regarding this short's re-discovery after being thought lost fore decades .... I was being filmed in the projection booth of the Loew's Jersey theatre in 1999 for Warner's shorts documentary, ADDED ATTRACTIONS. They have a Vitaphone disk set up. While the camera was being set up, I talked to the projectionist and at one point lost films and MIDNIGHT FROLIC came up. I said, "It's too bad it is a lost film", to which he replied "I have it, in 35mm". Apparently no one ever asked him. I suspect there are other lost films people have and don't realize are lost.

[drednm]

Regarding this short's re-discovery after being thought lost fore decades .... I was being filmed in the projection booth of the Loew's Jersey theatre in 1999 for Warner's shorts documentary, ADDED ATTRACTIONS. They have a Vitaphone disk set up. While the camera was being set up, I talked to the projectionist and at one point lost films and MIDNIGHT FROLIC came up. I said, "It's too bad it is a lost film", to which he replied "I have it, in 35mm". Apparently no one ever asked him. I suspect there are other lost films people have and don't realize are lost.

Amazing....

[boblipton]

Regarding this short's re-discovery after being thought lost fore decades .... I was being filmed in the projection booth of the Loew's Jersey theatre in 1999 for Warner's shorts documentary, ADDED ATTRACTIONS. They have a Vitaphone disk set up. While the camera was being set up, I talked to the projectionist and at one point lost films and MIDNIGHT FROLIC came up. I said, "It's too bad it is a lost film", to which he replied "I have it, in 35mm". Apparently no one ever asked him. I suspect there are other lost films people have and don't realize are lost.

Amazing....

I don't find it so. Thor Heyerdahl told the story about when he was on Easter Island, he asked some of the natives how their ancestors got those big stone heads up, so they showed him, lifting a little one that had fallen down, putting some stone under it, then lifting some more. When they were done, Heyerdahl commented on the fact that all the books said that it was a mystery, Why hadn't they told anyone. "Because no one asked us."

Life is like that.

Bob

[vitaphone]

The "no one ever asked me" situation also occured with the eventual discovery of Hello Pop, Why Be Good and Synthetic Sin.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Thanks for posting Ed.

Comments:

It appears very spontaneous and even though the main title says it was photographed in a studio, it certainly gives every appearance of being at a night club.

I do find it interesting that they chose to recreate the Frolic in the studio, rather than driving across town and filming it on the premises.

Perhaps Ziegfeld wanted too much money to film there, or they thought they would have better control over the acoustics. In any event, they certainly recreated the Urban backgrounds faithfully.

[CoffeeDan]

A friend of mine found a 35mm print of this in a Jersey movie house office closet. I restored the soundtrack and we had new 16mm prints made. Not sure where it appears on DVD.

It's an extra on the Original Cast DVD release of KID BOOTS.

[Ray Faiola]

Thanks.

[Lokke Heiss]

This short has great sound, and with its 'documentary' like shooting, I can almost smell the cigar and cigarette smoke wafting in the air..

On the topic of blackface shorts, does anyone know the name of a blackface routine that was on youtube about five years ago that looks like it was shot in the 50s, perhaps just for TV? I can't find it by googling the usual words, what made the short so unusual was that it was shot with a fluid camera and choreography, but was staged as if early TV. Any ideas?