George White's Scandals

Perhaps the most notable new stage musical of January 1936 was Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 which we discussed below. On Christmas Day 1935, George White's Scandals of 1935 opened at the New Amsterdam theater and ran for 110 performances. A similarly named film - George White's 1935 Scandals - had been released in March 1935. It featured the first major film appearance for Eleanor Powell. The film starred Alice Faye and Lyda Roberti. (Roberti had appeared in the stage version of Roberta). Three songs written for the film - including "I Like It with Music" and "Sweet and Lowdown" were cut from the film at the insistence of censor Joseph Breen.

On Broadway, Bert Lahr appeared in the show as did a dance team known as Sam, Ted and Ray. who were praised for their "excellent tap dancing" by The Nation. They apparently performed a number called "Selassie and His Army." Time heartily approved of their act:

High point of the performance: three Negroes called Sam, Ted and Ray, two of whom wear neat Ethiopian regimentals, while the third affects the sun helmet, black cape, gold-braided tunic and umbrella of Man-of-the-Year Haile Selassie, clogging for dear life atop a small dais.

Robert Benchley in The New Yorker had a similar reaction. He noted that the show features a "remarkable team of colored dancers known as Sam, Ted, and Ray, who, representing a suspiciously nimble Haile Selassie and his army, stop the show with smiling ease."

Sam, Ted and Ray were Samuel Green, Ted Fraser and Ray Winfield. They also danced under the sobriquet "Tip, Tap and Toe" and in 1937 appeared in the film You Can't Have Everything with Don Ameche and Alice Faye. Their performance in that film is said to "anticipate" those of the Nicholas Brothers.

The songs for the show were written by Ray Henderson. Henderson had been writing for Broadway since he did the music for George White's Scandals of 1925. Henderson was born in Buffalo and attended conservatory in Chicago. According to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, into which Henderson was inducted in 1970, Henderson is best known as the composer of such standards as "Life Is a Bowl of Cherries", "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "You're the Cream in My Coffee."

In the same issue in which it reviewed Scandals, Time named Haile Selassie "Man of the Year." Consistent with its overall tone of condescending racism, Time commented as follows regarding the Emperor of Ethiopia:

Above all, Haile Selassie has created a general, warm and blind sympathy for uncivilized Ethiopia throughout civilized Christendom. In the wake of the world's grandiose Depression, with millions of white men uncertain as to the benefits of civilization, 1935 produced a peculiar Spirit of the Year in which it was felt to be a crying shame that the Machine Age seemed about to intrude upon Africa's last free, unscathed and simple people. They were ipso facto Noble Savages, and the noblest Ethiopian of them all naturally emerged as Man of the Year.

In the arts and entertainment field, Time noted that "independent exhibitors" named Shirley Temple as the greatest box office draw of 1935. Clark Gable was third and Astaire and Rogers fifth on the exhibitors list. Later in January 1936, Time announced that film critics had chosen David Copperfield as the top film of 1935. Top Hat was seventh on the list followed by Broadway Melody of 1936 (which featured the Nicholas Brothers) and Roberta. Clearly, dancers and dance films enjoyed a popularity and critical acclaim in the 1930s which, sadly, has dissipated in the years since.