Harlem Is Heaven (1932)

Director:

Irwin Franklyn

Writer:

Irwin Franklyn (writer)

Release Date:

27 May 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Musical

Plot Keywords:

African American | All Black Cast | Independent Film

Cast

Bill Robinson	...	Bill
Putney Dandridge	...	Stage Manager
James Baskett	...	Money Johnson (as Jimmy Baskette)
Anise Boyer	...	Jean Stratton
Henri Wessell	...	Chummy Walker
Alma Smith	...	Gret Rae
Bob Sawyer	...	Knobs Moran
Eubie Blake	...	Himself (as Eubie Blake and His Orchestra)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Mason	...	Spider

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Herald Pictures

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Broadway: The American Musical" (2004)

Anise Boyer is Tops!

This is a wonderful movie. Another goodie of Black Cinema. Anise Boyer steals the movie. She is strikingly pretty. The prettiest of Black Cinema. What a natural in front of the scene, even though this was her first and only movie. Anise Boyer was a Cotton Club chorine alongside Lena Horne. Many times she was voted more prettier then Horne. She was also called the prettiest chorine of the East. In this movie Anise is petite but powerful. The story is basically like most musicals of the 1930's. A girl comes from the south to the big city Harlem looking for work, she gets to become a star but she has to pay for her stardom and she gets involved in some risky business, through it all she remains sweet and unharmed. She's a girl you won't forget. She has a dry tarty type of voice that's so cute. She's a mixture of Alice White and Jean Harlow. She is just sweet as pie and tough as nails. Anise steals the movie even from Bill Robinson. The best scene of the movie is Anise getting into a cat fight with Greta (Alma Smith- popular dancer in the 1930s) it's one of the best fight scenes in movie history. As little as Anise is she dominates the fight and she goes to town on Greta and when little, tough Jean (Anise) gets down beating up Greta, Jean (Anise) grabs her and say "are you gonna talk, huh?" in the same fashion of Humphrey Bogart and Cagney. What woman have you seen fight and talk like that? Only in Black Cinema could it happen. Though it's called Black Cinema, Blacks got to play versatile roles, play human beings from all walks of life unlike Hollywood where Blacks had to be "black" or the stereotype. The movie is fun and entertaining. You get to see how entertainment was in the greatest era of Black entertainment. You get to see Bill Robinson do his famous dances, act, and fight. You get to see handsome Henri Wessell and talented James Baskett, who isn't talked about much who also won a special Academy Award, why isn't he mention as much as Hattie McDaniels? Eubie Blake band is great as always.