KID MILLIONS (1934)

Egyptologist Edward Grant Wilson has died and left a $77 million inheritance to his next of kin. Dot Clark (Ethel Merman), a music store plugger—someone who sings songs for customers in order to sell sheet music—figures she's in store for the money, as she'd had an affair with him, and her gangster boyfriend Louie says she can claim to be Wilson's common-law wife. But Larrabee, head of a museum foundation that Wilson worked with, figures the money should go to the museum. Wilson's lawyers, however, track down Wilson's son Eddie (Eddie Cantor) who has lived in obscurity on a barge with his bullying stepbrothers. All three parties wind up on a ship headed for Egypt. Dot, accompanied by Louie, tells Eddie she is his mother—even though she says she's 19 and he's 25—and Louie thinks of ways to kill Eddie. Larrabee is traveling with his attractive young niece Joan (Ann Sothern) who engages in some flirting with Eddie even though her long-suffering boyfriend Jerry (George Murphy) is also on board. In Egypt, they all have adventures involving a sheik, his daughter (who falls for Eddie), a lost treasure, and a roomful of talking mummies. Not to mention all the songs and production numbers.

Eddie Cantor, a huge star of vaudeville, radio and Broadway, is now, like many other performers with such roots in the 20s and 30s, something of an acquired taste, though he's not as overbearing as others like Al Jolson, Joe E. Brown, or Bert Lahr. Based on this and ROMAN SCANDALS, his persona seems to be that of a likable but naïve guy who nevertheless manages to come out on top. Here, he does indeed wind up with the money (which he uses to build a huge ice cream factory) and even more or less becomes pals with his rivals. Merman almost steals the show from Cantor, and Sothern and Murphy are pleasant. There is a huge minstrel show number on the ship which highlights the fabulous dancing of the Nicholas Brothers. Warren Hymer has a few nice moments as Louie, and Doris Davenport has the small role of Eddie's love interest back home. The lovely and often scantily-clad Goldwyn Girls appear in dance numbers (supposedly a young Lucille Ball is present among them). The finale, in early Technicolor, is set in a huge ice cream factory and plays out much more like a dream than reality. The talking mummy scene is cute, and there's a fun line in the song "When My Ship Comes In" when Cantor sings about having "Walter Disney paintings on the wall." The pace never flags, although at 90 minutes, I was ready for it to end. But overall, it's enjoyable enough, especially now as pandemic distraction. Pictured are Cantor and Davenport. [DVD]