Golden Dawn (film)

Golden Dawn (1930

1930 in film

-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:*Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front - Universal Studios*Best Actress: Norma Shearer - The Divorcee*Best Actor: George Arliss - Disraeli...

) is a musical operetta released by Warner Brothers and photographed entirely in Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation , now a division of Thomson SA. Technicolor was the second major color film process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color motion picture process in Hollywood...

. The film is based on the semi-hit stage musical of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American writer, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song", and much of his work is part of the unofficial Great...

 and Otto Harbach

Otto Harbach

Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...

.

• "Africa Smiles No More" (Sung by Alice Gentle)
• "The Whip" (Sung by Noah Beery twice)
• "My Bwanna" (Sung by Vivienne Segal and chorus; Reprised by Vivienne Segal)
• "We Two" (Sung by Marion Byron and Dick Henderson)
• "Dawn" (Sung by Walter Woolf King; Reprised by a chorus during finale)
• "Mooda's Song" (Sung by Alice Gentle)
• "My Heart's Love Call" (Sung by Walter Woolf King)
• "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (Sung by the British exchange prisoners)
• "In a Jungle Bungalow" (Sung by Lupino Lane and chorus; Danced to by Lupino Lane)
• "A Tiger" (Sung and danced to by Marion Byron and Lee Moran; Reprised by Marion Byron)
• "Mulungu Thabu" (Sung by chorus with spoken interjections by Nigel de Brulier)
• " what's up" ( sung by chorus)

Noah Beery recorded "The Whip" for Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by Koch Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...

 along with a song from Song of the Flame (1930), another Warner Bros.

Golden Dawn (1930

1930 in film

-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:*Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front - Universal Studios*Best Actress: Norma Shearer - The Divorcee*Best Actor: George Arliss - Disraeli...

) is a musical operetta released by Warner Brothers and photographed entirely in Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation , now a division of Thomson SA. Technicolor was the second major color film process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color motion picture process in Hollywood...

. The film is based on the semi-hit stage musical of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American writer, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song", and much of his work is part of the unofficial Great...

 and Otto Harbach

Otto Harbach

Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...

.

Songs

• "Africa Smiles No More" (Sung by Alice Gentle)
• "The Whip" (Sung by Noah Beery twice)
• "My Bwanna" (Sung by Vivienne Segal and chorus; Reprised by Vivienne Segal)
• "We Two" (Sung by Marion Byron and Dick Henderson)
• "Dawn" (Sung by Walter Woolf King; Reprised by a chorus during finale)
• "Mooda's Song" (Sung by Alice Gentle)
• "My Heart's Love Call" (Sung by Walter Woolf King)
• "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (Sung by the British exchange prisoners)
• "In a Jungle Bungalow" (Sung by Lupino Lane and chorus; Danced to by Lupino Lane)
• "A Tiger" (Sung and danced to by Marion Byron and Lee Moran; Reprised by Marion Byron)
• "Mulungu Thabu" (Sung by chorus with spoken interjections by Nigel de Brulier)
• " what's up" ( sung by chorus)

Trivia

Noah Beery recorded "The Whip" for Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by Koch Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...

 along with a song from Song of the Flame (1930), another Warner Bros. musical he had recently appeared in.

Whenever the film is mentioned today in film reference books and TV/movie guides, it receives unanimously scathing reviews, most notably for its racism and its unintentionally funny performances. Beery not only plays his role in blackface, but also plays it with the type of Deep South accent one would find in characters such as Mammy in Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind (film)

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American drama romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming...

, despite the fact that he is supposed to be playing an African chieftain. Humorously snide comments of unintended double entendre

Double entendre

A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so; often risqué, inappropriate, or ironic....

 have also been made over Beery's "The Whip".http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195088115

Preservation

The film survives only in a black-and-white copy made in the 1950s for television.