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Cabin in the Sky
 
 
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Cabin in the Sky is an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 Broadway
Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 39 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City....
 musical
Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece ? humor, pathos, love, anger ? as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole....
 which opened in 1940. A motion picture based on the musical was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released in 1943.

The film version of Cabin in the Sky starred Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an United States blues and jazz vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, rock and roll and pop music, on the Broadway theatre stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues....
 as Petunia and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson of Jack Benny
Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudeville, and actor for radio programming, television, and film.Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "...
 fame as Little Joe. Lena Horne
Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne is an American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, and Billy Eckstine....
 co-starred as the temptress Georgia Brown in her first and only leading role in an MGM musical.






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Cabin in the Sky is an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 Broadway
Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 39 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City....
 musical
Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece ? humor, pathos, love, anger ? as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole....
 which opened in 1940. A motion picture based on the musical was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released in 1943.

The film version of Cabin in the Sky starred Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an United States blues and jazz vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, rock and roll and pop music, on the Broadway theatre stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues....
 as Petunia and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson of Jack Benny
Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudeville, and actor for radio programming, television, and film.Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "...
 fame as Little Joe. Lena Horne
Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne is an American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, and Billy Eckstine....
 co-starred as the temptress Georgia Brown in her first and only leading role in an MGM musical. Other cast members included Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers....
 as one of Lucifer
Lucifer

Lucifer is a name frequently given to Satan in Christian belief. This usage as a reference to a fallen angel stems from a particular interpretation of a passage in the Bible that speaks of someone who is given the name of "Day Star" or "Morning Star" as fallen from heaven....
 Junior's minions, Rex Ingram
Rex Ingram (actor)

Rex Ingram was an African American film and stage actor. Born near Cairo, Illinois on the Mississippi River , he claimed to have obtained a medical degree from Northwestern University in 1919 and that he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, but this is unconfirmed....
 as Lucifer Junior, and Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader.Duke Ellington was recognized during his life as one of the most influential Jazz royalty, if not in all American music and he is of only four jazz musicians ever to have been featured on the cover of Time magazine ....
 and his Orchestra, who have a showcase musical number.

Overview and history

Cabin in the Sky tells a version of the Faust
Faust

Faust or Faustus is the protagonist of a classic German folklore who makes a pact with the Devil in exchange for knowledge. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works, such as those by Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Mann, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod, Gu...
 legend in which Little Joe, a man killed over gambling debts, is given six months to redeem his soul and become worthy of entering Heaven
Heaven

Heaven may refer to the physical heavens, the atmosphere or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English, however since at least AD 1000, it is typically also used to refer to an afterlife plane of existence in various religions and spirituality philosophy, often descri...
 -- otherwise his soul will be condemned to Hell
Hell

In many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear Divinity history often depict Hell as endless ....
.

Produced by Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed

Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was an United States lyricist and a Hollywood film producer....
 and directed by Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli was a Hollywood film director and Theatre director. His skilled integration of story, music, lighting, and design elements in a film made him the most critically respected crafter of musical film....
 in his Hollywood debut, Cabin in the Sky was a groundbreaking production for its time due to the decision to use an all-African-American cast. In the 1940s, movie theaters in many cities, particularly in the southern United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, refused to show films with prominent black performers, so MGM took a considerable financial risk by approving the film.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe
Happiness is a Thing Called Joe

"Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" is a song composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics written by Yip Harburg, it was written for the 1940 musical Cabin in the Sky....
."

Cabin in the Sky is remembered for its intelligent and witty script, which treated its characters and their race with a dignity rare in American films of the time, although some depictions are still a bit jarring to 21st century sensibilities. According to liner notes in the CD reissue of the film's soundtrack, Freed and Minnelli sought input from black leaders before production began on the film.

One musical number, in which Horne sings a reprise of "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble bath
Bubble bath

The term bubble bath can be used to describe aeration or carbonated baths, or to describe bathing with a layer of surfactant foam on the surface of the water and consequently also the surfactant product used to produce the foam....
, was cut from the film prior to release, though it later appeared in a 1946 Pete Smith
Pete Smith (film producer)

Pete Smith was a film producer and narrator of "short subject" films from 1931 to 1955.Smith was a publicist at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who was recruited to overdub the actions of trained dogs in the studio's "Dogville" comedies....
 short subject entitled Studio Visit. As Horne later said in the documentary That's Entertainment! III in which the excised performance was also featured, it was felt that to show a black woman singing in a bath went beyond the bounds of moral decency in 1943. A second (non-bubble bath) performance of this song by Louis Armstrong was also cut from the final print, resulting in the famous trumpeter having no solo musical number in the film.

After years of unavailability, Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . It was re-named Warner Home Video in 1980....
 and Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment

Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution....
 released it on DVD on January 10 2006.

Songs

    • "Taking a Chance on Love
      Taking a Chance on Love

      "Taking a Chance on Love" is a popular music song, by Vernon Duke, John Latouche, and Ted Fetter, published in 1940 in music, which has become a pop standards, recorded by many artists....
      "
    • "Cabin in the Sky"
    • "Honey in the Honeycomb"
    • "Love Me Tomorrow"
    • "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe
      Happiness is a Thing Called Joe

      "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" is a song composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics written by Yip Harburg, it was written for the 1940 musical Cabin in the Sky....
      "
    • "Things Ain't What They Used To Be"


Trivia

  • A scene involving a tornado
    Tornado

    A tornado is a violent, rotating column of air which is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud....
     reuses footage from The Wizard of Oz
    The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

    The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 in film Cinema of the United States musical film-fantasy film mainly directed by Victor Fleming and based on the 1900 Children's literature novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L....
     as well as Dorothy's farm house set.


  • The moonwalk
    Moonwalk

    A moonwalk is an excursion on the Moon . It may also refer to:* Joe Gilmore#Moonwalk, a drink invented for the first walk on the Moon in 1969...
     is performed by the tap dancer Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey (dancer)

    Bill Bailey was an African American Tap dancing. He was the brother of Pearl Bailey. Bill was the first person to be recorded doing the Moonwalk , although he referred to it as the "Backslide", in the film Cabin In the Sky , starring Ethel Waters, Rochester and Lena Horne....
     during the "Taking a Chance on Love" number. Bill Bailey was the brother of Pearl Bailey
    Pearl Bailey

    Pearl Mae Bailey was an American singer and actress. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway theatre debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946....
    .


External links