Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (film)

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
	Video coverart
Directed by	Lewis Milestone
Written by	S.N. Behrman
Story by	Ben Hecht
Starring	Al Jolson; Madge Evans; Frank Morgan
Cinematography	Lucien N. Andriot
Edited by	Duncan Mansfield
Music by	Richard Rodgers
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	February 3, 1933;
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum is a 1933 American pre-Code musical comedy film directed by Lewis Milestone and set in the Great Depression. The title is taken from the American folk song "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", and the film contains a song called "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", but the song from the movie is entirely different than the folk song from which the title is taken.

The film stars Al Jolson as Bumper, a popular New York tramp, and both romanticizes and satirizes the hobo lifestyle into which many people were forced by the economic conditions of the time. It is noted for its heavy leftist overtones and freewheeling style. Among the production's supporting cast are Frank Morgan, silent comedian Harry Langdon, Chester Conklin of the Keystone Cops, and vaudevillian Edgar Connor.^[1] Morgan, who portrays the Wizard in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz, foreshadows a line in the later film when he says to Al Jolson, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home".

Cast

Al Jolson as Bumper
Madge Evans as June Marcher
Frank Morgan as Mayor John Hastings
Harry Langdon as Egghead
Chester Conklin as Sunday
Tyler Brooke as Mayor's Secretary
Tammany Young as Orlando
Bert Roach as John
Edgar Connor as Acorn
Dorothea Wolbert as Apple Mary
Louise Carver as Ma Sunday

Music

The music was composed by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The score includes the jazz standard "You Are Too Beautiful", which is played several times throughout the movie.

The complete list of musical numbers in the film is:

"I Gotta Get Back to New York"
"My Pal Bumper"
"Hallelujah, I'm a Bum"
"Laying the Cornerstone"
"Sleeping Beauty" (dropped before the film was released)
"Dear June"
"Bumper Found a Grand"
"What Do You Want With Money?"
"Kangaroo Court"
"I'd Do It Again"
"You Are Too Beautiful"

Reception

In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.^[3]

References

^ Green, Stanley (1999). Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.). Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corp. p. 19. ISBN 0-634-00765-3. OCLC 42947333.
^ "Hallelujah I'm a Bum". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved January 4, 2016.
^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan (June 25, 1998). "List-o-Mania: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love American Movies". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020.

External links

Media related to Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (film) at Wikimedia Commons
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum at IMDb
Synopsis at AllMovie
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum at the TCM Movie Database

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[Green-1] Green, Stanley (1999). Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.). Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corp. p. 19. ISBN 0-634-00765-3. OCLC 42947333.

[2] "Hallelujah I'm a Bum". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved January 4, 2016.

[3] Rosenbaum, Jonathan (June 25, 1998). "List-o-Mania: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love American Movies". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020.

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