Protuberant Eyes and the Greasepaint Race

Eddie Cantor was hugely popular for several decades, but always struck me as someone who didn’t necessarily want to entertain you. He wanted to leave you with the impression that he, Eddie Cantor, was hilarious.

This brief editorial is a lead-in to a review of the Cantor radio programme by Herald Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby. Cantor puzzles him in a way, as you can see in this story dated October 30, 1946.

RADIO IN REVIEW
THE CASE HISTORY OF CANTOR
By JOHN CROSBY
I never got around to any of the original Ziegfeld Follies but, having closely studied two opulent motion pictures about the great Ziggy, I consider myself an authority on them. According to this somewhat questionable source material, Eddie Cantor, in those days, was a little wisp of a man in white gloves and blackface who jumped up and down, rolled a pair of out-size eyes and shouted, "If you knew Suzie Like I knew Suzie."
During this luminous period Eddie was surrounded end supplemented by a roster of talent as long as your arm, including Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, Bert Williams and of course dozens of beautiful girls. The second, or technicolor period of the Cantor career, took place in Hollywood— and from here on speak from personal observation— when the little comedian did his jumping up and down in front of hundreds, rather than mere dozens, of beautiful girls and about a million dollars worth of United Artists’ most expensive furniture and drapes.
When he entered radio, Cantor brought along as much of this luggage as was possible in a non-visual medium. The beautiful girls and the settings had to be discarded but in their place Cantor surrounded himself by a huge orchestra, a comic violinist (predecessor, I guess, to the comic bandleader), a comic announcer, and an impressive array of guest stars. In the middle, as usual, were Mr. Cantor's wistful, protuberant eyes floating, as it were, in a sea of somebody else's talent.
It's an excellent formula and has kept the customers coming, for 30 years or more, to the theater, the motion pictures, and their radio sets. Still I could never understand why the little man was worth all the fuss. A pair of performing dogs surrounded by the Philharmonic, beautiful girls and screen stars would attract just as large a crowd and would be less expensive to maintain.
Cantor's brand of comedy and his personality, it must be admitted, is uniquely his own. He's an appealing little cuss who is always chased by bigger men, and his reaction to almost any stimuli never seems to fit his small body. When he's frightened, he gibbers; when he's sad, he cries; his indignation is explosive and his happiness is radiant. It should be funny but to me, raised to a period of quieter, more understated comedy, it just isn’t. Some trauma of my childhood, probably, because Cantor makes lots of people laugh. I know because I've heard them.
Anyhow, to bring this history up to the present, no one can accuse Cantor of resting on somebody’s else's talents in his current radio series (N. B. C. 10:30 p. m. E. S. T. Thursdays.) The program is an overpoweringly intimate affair, consisting largely of dialogue between Cantor and Harry Von Zell, a mastodon of an announcer, which might very well have been called "Eddie and Harry At Home."
At various times on the current series, Eddie and Harry were plagued by refrigerators—Eddie ordered them from every dealer in town and then got them all at once, a situation that was worked up and down Iike a crossword puzzle—and were frightened by a horror movie and passed the evening crawling under one another’s beds.
More recently Mr. Cantor became petulant because the motion pictures bought and filmed Al Jolson's life and ignored his own. In this one, Cantor prepares a script of his own life, authentic, he says, in every detail. (His father, he insists, sold shoelaces only at night; in the daytime he was prime minister of England). Cantor attempts to get Cary Grant, his guest star, to play the leading role.
"Grant’s about my age," he says to Harry.
"You're speaking of Ulysses S., of course."
Anyhow, Mr. Grant says no to this proposition and so does Harry, whereupon Eddie, according to my notes, says: "Harry turns me down. Cary turns me down. What’s left for me—harikari?" This winds up in a deathbed scene, taken right out of Hecht and MacArthur's "Twentieth Century," in which Cantor wangles Grant into signing a contract by pretending suicide.
"I see the Pearly Gates right in front of me,” he cries. "But I can’t get in. I can't get in."
"Why not?"
“They're picketing the place."
Somewhere along the line there was an elopement joke, the first I’ve heard in years, which I pass along as a collector's item: "Her father caught me when I was half way up the ladder.” “What did you do?" "I painted the house.”
All in all, the Cantor show is fitfully amusing and only occasionally painful. For my money, the best part of it is the wind-up when Eddie shouts in that surprisingly full tenor those old songs like "Louise" or "If You Knew Suzie." Also you get one or two songs from Margaret Whiting, a thrush who puts lots of flavor and bounce to the more recent tunes.
Incidentally, Pabst Blue Ribbon deserves a pat on the back for its discreet, intelligent and frequently amusing advertising which is blended right into the script.

The day before, Crosby examined the phenomenon that was Amos ‘n’ Andy. It’s almost impossible to have any kind of discussion about this show today. There are people can’t get past the word “blackface.” The odd thing is perhaps the biggest complaints about the show came in the television years when all the major parts were played by black people.

Crosby takes the unusual viewpoint that blacks and blackface are not the same thing; that the latter is a phoney, theatrical thing. I don’t want to get into a racial discussion here because it’s lose-lose. Instead, I’ll reprint his column.

RADIO IN REVIEW
Amos 'n' Andy Carry On
By JOHN CROSBY
On March 28, 1928, Charles J. Correll first said, "Hello, Amos," and Freeman F. Gosden first replied, "Hello, Andy," on a sustaining program over WMAQ in Chicago. Five months later they were on a national network earning $100,000 a year from the Pepsodent Company, and almost overnight they set the back woods ablaze. "I'se regusted" became a national catchphrase and millions of listeners quivered for weeks as Andy fought and finally won a breach of promise suit brought by Madame Queen. Telephone calls dropped 50 percent during their 15-minute program (7 to 7:15 p. m.) and Amos ‘n’ Andy's fame approached that of Al Capone and Jimmy Walker, though, of course, they didn't get the headlines.
Well, time passed. President Hoover left the White House, Jimmy Walker went to England, Al Capone went to Alcatraz. "I'se regusted" fell out of favor and Popeye's "I yam disgustipated" took its place. Somewhere in the last eighteen years we reached a deeper, bitterer, more perceptive understanding of Negroes.
And, in spite of it all, if you had been listening to Amos 'n' Andy recently (N. B. C. 9:30 p. m. E.S.T. Tuesdays) you might have heard the Kingfish frying to embezzle some money from Andy by starting on the spur of the moment De First National and Kingfish Bank and Trust Company.
"I wanna make sure my bank is safe", says Andy.
"Yo couldn' find no safer bank dan de First National an' Kingfish Bank and Trust Company. Ev'ry deeposit goes right heah in mah back pocket.”
“What's so safe about dat?"
"Well, can't you see de button on it?"
"I still feels I’d be better off wid a reg’lar bank."
"Now, wait a minute, Andy. Banks is closed on Sundays and holidays, ain't dey? But you can git into mah back pocket at any time. All you gotta do is walk up behind me an' unbutton it."
"Yeah, an' a pickpocket can do de same thing."
"No, dat's against de law."
"I nevah thought of dat."
Amos ‘n’ Andy are no longer on six days a week. Their half hour, once-a-week show, which started in 1943, is a sleek streamlined job built around one idea. Where they used to play around with one idea for weeks, each program now is a complete story in itself, consisting of short, sharp sequences with the dialogue, cut to the bone.
I don't know what happened to Ruby, Amos' old flame, and Madame Queen doesn't seem to be around any more, but you'll meet a lot of old friends. As usual, Gosden plays Amos as well as the Kingfish, Brother Crawford and Lightning. Correll plays Andy, the landlord and Henry Van Porter, the Harlem socialite. However, the two comedians no longer attempt to play all the roles themselves. It's a big show now and its waistline has increased considerably.
The conversation has been brought up to date along with the format. You don't hear much about the Fresh Air Taxicab Company Incorpulated these days. Instead the talk is of prefabulated housing and the meat shortage.
"Las' night we done had a aspic salad."
"Aspic salad? What do aspic mean?"
"Well, it means you can pick and pick and you ain' gonna find no meat."
That sort of gag is infrequent, however, and the boys are not entirely comfortable with it. Amos 'n' Andy was and still is character comedy. The laughs, what there are of them, revolve around the shrewd but faulty scheming of Andy, and the shiftless habits of de Kingfish, who is still horrified by employment.
"Ah just happened to think how yo could git some money, Kingfish", says Amos.
"How's dat, Brother Amos.”
"Go to work—so long.”
"Dat Amos is got a nasty tongue."
It's about as characteristic of the Negro race as Al Jolson's Mammy and as harmless. Actually, Amos 'n' Andy aren't Negroes at all; they're blackface, a race apart that lives on grease-paint and fan mail. They're at their best when they talk pure nonsense. ("We gotta let the population predominate the internal revenue and inflate the reforestation of lumber") and they're still the masters of timing and inflection.
I don't recall taking much part in the original Amos 'n' Andy craze, but today I think they have a certain historical interest. Their theme, "The Perfect Song," is already a classic and will probably wind up in the Museum of Modern Art like Douglas Fairbanks' old films.

Crosby’s other columns for the week:
● Bill Paley criticises the critics (Oct. 28)
● More Paley and a look at some giveaway shows (Oct. 31)
● A profile of “We, The People” (Nov. 1)