Dark Millie Marquee! — Page 2

Thank you, alterego! It's the opening lyrics to "Blackout over Broadway", the great minstrel show finale to BABES ON BROADWAY (1941) with Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney, directed by Busby Berkley. The kids are singing it while smearing on burnt-cork blackface makeup. The whole number - which features Mickey playing 'Swanee River' and 'Alabamy Bound' on a banjo, Judy belting out 'Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones', Ray McDonald (as "Rufus Rastus Jefferson Davis Brown" ) tap-dancing to 'By The Light Of The Silvery Moon' - and everybody singing and dancing to 'Waiting for the Robert E. Lee' - has to be seen to be believed. It's just as entertaining and even more tasteless than "Springtime for Hitler"!

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I CRINGED all the way through that finale of Babes in Arms. First of all, what a bizarre plot to begin with. A section of town where the performers and their families all live and are looked down upon for being performers. Was it SUPPOSED to be a metaphor for other communities being ghettoized? And then that finale! And it goes on and on and on. In black face. Completely appaling. I couldn't turn it off.

I'm a bit disappointed that Broadwayguy somehow let this lyric pass without Broadwayguy-izing it:

"And when ya hear them moan -
on that slide trombone -"

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Updated On: 8/17/03 at 11:10 AM

Hope everyone is ok.
I was stuck in an an elevator before it happened but it was minor.
I hope everyone in NYC and across the country are safe.
Be well.
Please say a prayer for all who are hurt or sick.
Get well soon Russ.
Oh and I do have a toothache.

Updated On: 8/17/03 at 02:33 PM