Hi De Ho

My jaw dropped shortly after the start of the movie, when Cab Calloway sang "Minnie's a Hepcat Now" solo a cappella. This was a big band leader who actually had all the music an audience needed right inside himself. An extraordinary performer; and though the rest of the movie is packed with an abundance of band numbers, he never allows a dull musical moment. Like some of the songs Cab Calloway sang, the 1947 HI-DE-HO movie mixes pathos and joie de vivre against the background of a gritty story. In a musical performance like the "Saint James Infirmary" seen here, the mixture is funny and powerful. In the plot line of the movie, it's less successful.

Unfortunately, in the European TV broadcast I caught, I didn't notice that "Dusty Fletcher does his famous 'Open the Door Richard' sketch" as in the version someone else saw. An odd thing I did notice was that in the nightclub scenes when the plot is in its long suspension near the end, the dancers seem sized wrongly for the perspective, as if they were dancing in front of a screen on which the band was projected.