Cabin in the Sky

Beautiful,talented, and ageless until this day. I see why lead actress Ethel Waters, was jealous. She treated Lena bad behind the scenes because of her youth and beauty.


Cabin in the Sky !!!!Fo Sho Baby!!!!!   October 13, 2003
burch (Columbia, MO)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Vincente Minnelli, who directed the film, Cabin in the Sky (1943), composed this `race movie' with an all African American cast. What makes this film extraordinary is that Vincente Minnelli is a white director who filmed this picture with an all black cast. Around the early 1940's, mainstream production studios (Hollywood) noticed that these `race movies' which consisted of African American directors/producers/casts, were producing huge sums of money. In an attempt to tap this newly discovered source of money, the mainstream film industry began to produce these race films which consisted of white directors/producers, but included an all African American cast. In Cabin in the Sky, Minnelli includes many social issues that black America faced during this time. A major issue that black America faced back in the 1940's and still today which Minnelli included in this film is obtaining identity/home.
An example of obtaining home can be explained by the scene where the character Little Joe (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson) dies and rises out of his body only to awake to the presence of Lucifer Jr. (Rex Ingram). As Lucifer Jr. describes to Little Joe all of the evil things that will come to him in Hell, Little Joe screams out, "I don't want to die, I just wanna' go back home to Petunia." In this scene, Little Joe identifies home as Earth, all the physical objects in which he can interact with (the absence of the spiritual world). Another example of home can be identified with the character Petunia (Ethel Waters) in the scene where she sits beside Little Joe next to him in his bed. Petunia preys to God to not take Little Joe home yet. In this scene, home is identified as the spiritual world, in which all the sins of the corrupt physical world would not exist. So in Petunias case, home is a pure spiritual world. In Little Joe's case, Earth is a testing ground to determine if a person should ascend to heaven or descend to hell. If a person lives a righteous life on Earth, then God will open the gates of heaven to that person. On the other hand, if a person lives a sinful life on Earth, the devil will open the gates of hell to that person. The moral of the film is that one must choose their path wisely while they live on the battleground between heaven and hell.
The film's title also has great significance. The title, Cabin in the Sky makes a huge statement saying that home is identified as heaven. A lack of home which is Earth, creates a void in which that void must be filled. If one can't obtain home physically, then one will obtain it spiritually. As in many of the scenes where Petunia preys to God prove that one will obtain home spiritually.
Overall, this film was excellent. It is a rare occasion to see pictures of a black heaven, in which many of the angels consisted of neatly dressed African American men in trimly white uniforms. Also, the gate keepers of heaven were young black angels, sitting valiantly on pedestals. The music by Ethel Waters and Duke Ellington with his band was phenomenal. I would recommend this movie to viewers who want to see how music and dance evolved from the old genre of `race movies' to the new genre of `race movies'.