A multiplicity of divergent talents including director Lewis Milestone, writers Ben Hecht and S. N. Behrman, composer Richard Rodgers, lyricist Lorenz Hart, along with performers Al Jolson, Chester Conklin and Harry Langdon – all major figures of American popular culture - got together in the darkest days of the Depression to create this eternal oddity, a quasi- musical with a bizarre plot about the an easygoing, charming "bum" (Al Jolson) satisfied with his lot, who as unofficial "mayor" of Central Park presides over the homeless community therein, all the while maintaining a casual friendship with the personable but corrupt Mayor of New York City (Frank Morgan). The rather improbable plot hinges on what happens after Jolson saves the life of, and develops a crush on, a beautiful young woman (Madge Evans), only to discover that she is the mistress of the Mayor himself.
Much of the film unfolds in song or spoken rhyme, some brilliant, some merely serviceable, and some rather awkward. In true Milestone fashion, the camera pans and tracks liberally, and we're even treated to a tour de force of precision editing, from close-up to close-up, syllable-by-syllable, of human faces as they sing a song.
The "bums" are depicted as a jolly and rather carefree bunch who inhabit a parallel civilization just under the radar of workaday life, sort of a benign version of the criminal underworld in Fritz Lang's "M." It's a romantic vision of homelessness, to be sure, in the spirit of the song "Old Man of the Mountain" ("his cares are none and he owes no one" he "sleeps with the stars for a tent" and "God charges no rent"). Harry Langdon, the least remembered of the Big Four funnymen of 20's silents (Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd being the others), here plays a speaking role as a Marxist garbage collector and comes across as an opinionated Stan Laurel but without the slapstick. Another silent comedian, Chester Conklin, is on hand as "Sunday," a horse-and-buggy driver married to battle-ax Louise Carver. Jolson himself has seldom if ever been more appealing on film, never grandstanding or hogging the proceedings (and never given the chance, whether in song or in speech). He is attended throughout by constantly grinning black actor Edgar Connor in a happy-to-be-servile role, made somewhat palatable by occasional non-moronic exchanges of dialogue with Jolson and others.
The script by Hecht and Behrman contains the terms "reds," "plutocrats," "socialist," and the like. In Hallelujah's world all money, unless in very small denominations, is a curse. Overall the impression is that of a lighthearted fantasy set in grim reality.
Much of the film unfolds in song or spoken rhyme, some brilliant, some merely serviceable, and some rather awkward. In true Milestone fashion, the camera pans and tracks liberally, and we're even treated to a tour de force of precision editing, from close-up to close-up, syllable-by-syllable, of human faces as they sing a song.
The "bums" are depicted as a jolly and rather carefree bunch who inhabit a parallel civilization just under the radar of workaday life, sort of a benign version of the criminal underworld in Fritz Lang's "M." It's a romantic vision of homelessness, to be sure, in the spirit of the song "Old Man of the Mountain" ("his cares are none and he owes no one" he "sleeps with the stars for a tent" and "God charges no rent"). Harry Langdon, the least remembered of the Big Four funnymen of 20's silents (Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd being the others), here plays a speaking role as a Marxist garbage collector and comes across as an opinionated Stan Laurel but without the slapstick. Another silent comedian, Chester Conklin, is on hand as "Sunday," a horse-and-buggy driver married to battle-ax Louise Carver. Jolson himself has seldom if ever been more appealing on film, never grandstanding or hogging the proceedings (and never given the chance, whether in song or in speech). He is attended throughout by constantly grinning black actor Edgar Connor in a happy-to-be-servile role, made somewhat palatable by occasional non-moronic exchanges of dialogue with Jolson and others.
The script by Hecht and Behrman contains the terms "reds," "plutocrats," "socialist," and the like. In Hallelujah's world all money, unless in very small denominations, is a curse. Overall the impression is that of a lighthearted fantasy set in grim reality.