recommended

not as good as all the hype

disgusting, overrated, pointless

The first must-see film of the year.

The songs and production numbers prove to be more entertaining than the comedy material in this lavish Goldwyn extravaganza, especially in the first half of the movie where we are treated to some overlong dialogue exchanges – particularly between Warren Hymer and Ethel Merman – that somehow managed to withstand the editing shears of Stuart Heisler. Indeed, most of the gags provided by the Arthur Sheekman-Nat Perrin-Nunnally Johnson script are rather elementary, but Cantor is fortunately such a genial comedian that it's hard to resist even his corniest puns. Art director, Richard Day, also has a right royal time, especially with the Egyptian episodes. Costumes designed by Omar Kiam and production numbers staged by Seymour Felix are also most attractive. And adding to that attraction, the finale was filmed in delightful Technicolor. True, the musical highlights are all still shaded by Busby Berkeley's Olympus, but they still prove to be a girl-filled delight, nevertheless. Available on an excellent Warner DVD.

All of the films of Eddie Cantor are great, but my two favorites have to be "Whoopee!" and this one. The storyline has our hero going to Egypt to inherit a 77 million dollar fortune, followed by a platoon of other people who would like to lay a prior claim to it. Among the co-stars are lovely Ann Sothern, in one of her earliest roles as the ingénue, and amazing Ethel Merman who really gives us "An Earful Of Music" in the opening sequence. Also along for the ride are the very young Nicholas Brothers who prove why they were so popular, and if you blink, you'll miss a glimpse of young Lucille Ball as one of the famed Goldwyn Girls. The finale is shot in spectacular three-color Technicolor, which was in an experimental stage at this point. Love this film.

Eddie Cantor's comedies, when they appear, usually still amuse the modern audiences that watch them. The only thing that jars is his use of black-face which crops up in his films - but while not liked by African-Americans it is less jarring with Cantor's films than with his contemporary Al Jolson. Jolson's use of black face in singing mingled his biggest asset (that melodious bleat of his voice) with a racial insult. But Cantor's use of the black face was not as overpowering as Jolson's - Cantor only would do one number in a film in black-face. His main persona was a cowardly or timid schlemiel who sang frequently without racist make-up on. Jolson could do it too, of course (most notably in HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM), but usually he is fully willing to "black himself" up before his biggest numbers. It really was not all that necessary to Cantor's work.In KID MILLIONS Eddie is the son of an archaeologist (his photo shows Cantor in pith helmet and side whiskers) who found a great treasure in Egypt before he died. The deceased was not a nice guy, and there are a number of people who feel they should be his legal heir. Besides Eddie (his son), there is his girlfriend (Ethel Merman - assisted by her other boyfriend Warren Hymer), there is a southern con-man who may have raised some funds for the Professor's last expedition (Burton Churchill), the con-man's daughter (Ann Southern), and a representative of a learned society that did back the expedition (George Murphy). All of them head for Egypt to get the treasure, but it is actually still in the hands of the Egyptian sheik (Paul Harvey) who considered the Professor an infidel (some things never change). The interplay of the characters in the story make it so amusing. Besides Cantor's combination of fear and determination to get the treasure, he has to fend off his rivals (in particular Merman and Hymer). Southern and Murphy slowly find themselves falling in love. And Cantor finds he has picked up a lover too (Eva Sully, the Jewish sounding daughter of the Sheikh). As Eddie says in the tune, "Okay Toots", "I like the sheik and his silly daughter, but I prefer her under water!" and proceeds to push the girl into a pool. The humor is clever at times. While talking on the boat to Egypt, Hymer and Churchill lose track of each other's conversation: Churchill is mentioning his neighbors in Virginia. Hymer, getting momentarily sidetracked mentions a neighbor of his with a name like Birnbaum or Schwartz. Without losing a beat, Churchill says, "One of the finest families of the South", leaving one with the image of an old first family of Virginia with a Jewish name. Hymer is certainly surprised.Despite the use of black face in the big musical number "Mandy" (and only Cantor puts it on), the film is pretty amusing as an entertainment. I can give it only a "7" because of the racist content of that sequence, but otherwise I think that it would be acceptable to an audience.

In the early 1930's Eddie Cantor was one of the biggest stars in the world, and "Kid Millions" will show you why. Cantor was energetic, wry, occasionally cutting (without heaping on the cruelty), sweet, and just plain funny, and it's a shame that most people today don't have the faintest idea of who he was. But then, that's increasingly true of Groucho, too. What to do with such a world?"Kid Millions" has lots of incidental pleasures, including the presence of the ridiculously young Nicholas Brothers, Ann Sothern, and Ethel Merman (who once again proves why she was just too "big," even for grandly produced spectacles like this one). Perhaps most interesting, from a film-history perspective, is the elaborate "Ice Cream Factory" sequence, which was shot in still-experimental 3-strip Technicolor. The earlier (2-strip) Technicolor could only render shades of cyan and magenta (often mistaken today for fading), while the new process was explosively full-spectrum. Audiences at the time must have been astonished.