Bessie Smith My Kitchen Man

In the Great Kitchen/Handy Man Sweepstakes, who comes out on top? I think it's Bessie. Great as Ethel Waters is (and I saw her on Turner Classics last night in one of the very first movie musicals, singing Am I Blue), she's just a bit too much of a lady, with a dry, ironic delivery that removes her from the naughty/earthy subject matter.  Bessie is more of a force of nature, delivering the outrageously suggestive lyrics ("love the way he warms my chops") without a trace of apology.

I confess I haven't paid enough attention to Ethel Waters up until now: I only remember her wobbly late performances, a la Mahalia Jackson, when she had pretty much lost the vibrant, almost bell-like tone that made her singing so amazing. When she first came on the screen in this incomprehensible mess of a movie (called, un-originally, On with the Show), I had no idea who she was because she wasn't even listed in the credits, in spite of her two solo numbers. She even made the ludicrous ballad Birmingham Bertha seem credible, with a superb male quartet behind her.

I was surprised to see how many black performers were in this thing, providing its only really inspired moments. There was no discernable plot: it seemed like watered-down Showboat mixed in with some sort of hokey ghost story. At one point a whole lot of girl dancers came out in riding costumes and rode broomstick horses all around the stage, then all of a sudden real horses plunged out of the scenery, throwing one rider (on purpose, or not?). Calling Busby Berkeley! We need you.