| Hallelujah, I'm a Bum | |
| Story: | Ben Hecht |
| Starring: | Al Jolson Madge Evans Frank Morgan |
| Director: | Lewis Milestone |
| Music: | Richard Rodgers |
| Cinematography: | Lucien N. Andriot |
| Editing: | Duncan Mansfield |
| Distributor: | United Artists |
| Runtime: | 82 minutes |
| Language: | English |
| Country: | United States |
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum is a 1933 American pre-Code musical comedy film directed by Lewis Milestone and set in the Great Depression. The title is taken from the American folk song "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", and the film contains a song called "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", but the song from the movie is entirely different than the folk song from which the title is taken.
The film stars Al Jolson as Bumper, a popular New York tramp, and both romanticizes and satirizes the hobo lifestyle into which many people were forced by the economic conditions of the time. It is noted for its heavy leftist overtones and freewheeling style. Among the production's supporting cast are Frank Morgan, silent comedian Harry Langdon, Chester Conklin of the Keystone Cops, and vaudevillian Edgar Connor.[1] Morgan, who portrays the Wizard in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz, foreshadows a line in the later film when he says to Al Jolson, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home".
The music was composed by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The score includes the jazz standard "You Are Too Beautiful", which is played several times throughout the movie.
The complete list of musical numbers in the film is:
In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.[2]