Whoopee!

She asks for a ride. He obliges, ever the gentleman despite being a nervous hypochondriac come west to Arizona to take a cure. Now everyone thinks they've eloped, and a passel of angry folks is in pursuit! As the health worrywart, irrepressible Eddie Cantor is in a hilarious fix all the way up to his famed banjo eyes in this adaptation of his Broadway smash that's the first of Cantor's highly successful partnerships with producer Samuel Goldwyn. The songs include the ribald "Makin' Whoopee" and "My Baby Just Cares for Me," the dance sequences are staged with pizzazz by first-timer Busby Berkeley, the leggy Goldwyn Girl chorines include young Betty Grable, and the photography is a then-rare Technicolor -- all perfectly paired with Cantor's exuberance and warmth. Some of the film's attitudes and insensitivities are reflective of its time, but there's much for classics fans to enjoy again and again in Whoopee!

• comedy
• musical