Surprise! (1935) Online

SURPRISE (1935) is a rare treat from the archives of Turner Classic Movies that will air once in a blue moon on the channel. This 21- minute "Broadway Brevity" produced by Warner Bros. stars the legendary Duncan Sisters. Rosetta and Vivian Duncan were as big as any stars in the world of Vaudeville during the 1910's, 1920's, and 1930's but their film appearances were quite rare, generally limited to brief appearances in short subjects. This 1935 short stars the sisters in a sweet little musical that vividly shows the charm that made the girls so beloved to live audiences.

There isn't much of a plot: Vivian and Rosetta play entertainers in the modern day 1930's who go "back home" when their gig is up, the Old South. Make that the REALLY Old South, where life does not seem to have changed much since the pre-Civil War 19th century. The girls on the road to home (in a carriage no less) stumble upon a surprise welcome home party for them going on at the old homestead, a fine old southern mansion. What happens from that point on is basically nonstop musical numbers, mostly from the sisters.

The movie also recreates the Duncan Sisters' most legendary vaudeville characters, Topsy and Eva, the children from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, played for comedy. Alas, Rosetta as Topsy is in offensive black face as was typical for these minstrel type programs still going on in the 1930's. The latter-day distaste for this is somewhat undercut by the lack of malice in her characterization and no attempt at a mush mouth malapropism stereotype, "Topsy" is eccentric but hers is a standard "adult mincing a child" voice. Indeed, watching Rosetta Duncan one realizes how much Fanny Brice's Baby Snooks owes to this famous characterization, it's basically the same character minus black makeup.

Topsy is quite funny with her sass and her downright 21st century cynicism. "I hate everybody," she says. "In fact I wish there was more people in the world so I could hate them, too!" Topsy loathes school and her teacher who "don't know nothing - she's always asking' me questions!"

The highlight is the hearing the lovely harmony singing of the sisters, natural and sweet and far more appealing than the often nasal vocals of some of the musical stars of the era. Rosetta was 40 when this short was made, Vivian 37 but they each look at least a decade younger. Rosetta is clearly the main talent here with an excellent voice and a pioneering comic style but Vivian holds her own and is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, as gorgeous as any blonde starlet fifteen years her junior.

This short was one of the last hurrahs for the sisters although they still worked on the stage for many years to come. Rosetta was killed in a car crash in 1959 and Vivian passed away in 1987 during the MTV generation, a million years away from the golden era of Vaudeville.

Based on other comments, this Vitaphone short features the Duncan Sisters, who, apparently were fairly well known in vaudeville, not well known in film.

You are definitely required to ignore a few things - like women in their late 30's to early 40's are attending college - but live in the deep South without a trace of a Southern accent. Rosie looks closer to her age than the age of a college coed, Vivian looks younger than her years.

This old plantation that they are supposed to be from has to be reached by horse and carriage. The Duncans arrive home to a surprise costume party. The sisters want to surprise the party goers by changing into costumes that they conveniently brought home from school. Some of the humor involves an exploding cigar, so don't expect to see any writing credits by Robert Benchley or Dorothy Parker.

There are people in blackface, so be prepared to be offended. One song about the Volga River flowing through Dixie has the word "darkies" There is also someone dressed as Simon Legree, holding a bullwhip to add to the offensiveness.

For the most part, this is pretty forgettable - except for the racist stereotypes, those should be remembered to see what was "acceptable", how far we've come from that, and how far we still need to go.

This is an incredibly wretched little short film and I have no idea why it is currently rated at 6.7. It truly is bad--very, very bad. And, while the film is truly insipid and annoying, it also is one of the more offensive films to come out of Hollywood.

SURPRISE! is a short film featuring the Duncan Sisters--two ladies who made it famous on the stage long before making this movie. Unfortunately, while they were definitely well-established singers and dancers, the script called for them to play college girls--even though they were 38 and 41 years-old. It just looked ridiculous and poorly cast.

Now despite this poor start, I assumed it had to get better. Well, I was wrong! Once these nearly geriatric co-eds left school to return home, the film switches to high gear wretchedness! At the giant welcome home masquerade party, there are several guests in black face. To make it worse, one of the Duncans then did a god-awful skit where she played "Topsy"--a lazy and stupid pickininny (i.e., in black-face with horrid braids---looking like the worst racist stereotype you could imagine). It wade me cringe it was that bad and could only imagine how painful it would be for Blacks to watch this!

So why does the film still get a 2? Well, there were tons and tons of songs and dances in this short film (as much as you'd find in many full-length musicals) and some of them weren't 100% terrible. But, on the other hand, none of them were that good (except for the guy doing the Russian-style dance).

Boring, offensive and stupid--this film is the trifecta of bad films!

Addendum--since posting this review, I've received some "not helpfuls". Why wasn't this review helpful? Did people who like bad singing and dancing or patently racist films get offended by my review? What I particularly found disturbing is how other reviewers WEREN'T offended by this film.