Honey (1930) DVD-R

Starring Nancy Carroll, Stanley Smith, Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher, Lillian
Roth, Harry Green, Mitzi Green, Zasu Pitts
Directed by Wesley Ruggles

Print: black/white
Runtime: 75 min.
Genre: comedy
Print Quality: B

The 1916 Alice Duer Miller play Come Out of the Kitchen, previously
filmed in 1921 with Marguerite Clark, was expertly transformed into early
musical Honey. The story takes place in a poverty-stricken Virginia
household, where blue-blooded brother and sister Olivia and Charles
Dangerfield (Nancy Carroll and Skeets Gallagher) are reduced to renting
out their mansion. Pretentious Yankee dowager Mrs. Falkner (Jobyna
Howland) moves in with her spunky daughter Cora (Lillian Roth) in tow,
while Olivia and Charles remain as servants. It isn't long before Cora has
fallen in love with Charles, and Olivia has done likewise with Cora's
former fiancee Burton Crane (Stanley Smith). The songs range from the
self-spoofing "In My Little Hope Chest" to the lively "Sing You Sinners"
(later used as a jazzy leitmotif in several Popeye and Betty Boop
cartoons!) The Alice Duer Miller original was filmed again in 1934 as the
British comedy Come Out of the Pantry and a fourth time in 1948 as Spring
in Park Lane.