Carnival of Rhythm (1941) User Reviews

Motion Pictures are first pictures

[boblipton · 6/10 · 27 March 2008]

This is actually a fairly decent little short subject, and it's not because of the fair choreography, the unmemorable singing or Knox Manning's usual pompous delivery of overwritten lines like 'savage as the night from which it comes'. It's because the unnamed set designer and Technicolor DP Charles P. Boyle agreed on a set that looks like it was designed by German expressionists with a sense of humor, and dressed up in bright but shadow-lit colors, so you get a constant stream of impressionist blotches, like Mondrian on a black canvas. So if you can ignore the sound, this is a great picture, worth a rating of ten .... but the soundtrack brings it down to merely good.

Does anyone but me think Katherine Dunham is a dead ringer for Phylicia Rashad?

not expecting authenticity

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 9 October 2021]

Katherine Dunham leads a song and dance musical short to celebrate the Brazilian culture. Here's the deal. This is basically a dinner performance in one of those all inclusive resorts. Authenticity cannot be expected. The colors are bright and gaudy in Technicolor. It's like a off Broadway show. There is no plot. I do appreciate that there is some darker shades if you know what I mean. The lighter tones do get center stage but the darker shades have plenty of screen time. In a way, this is of its time and I always appreciate work for performers who don't usually get their opportunities.

Good splash of color but poor musical numbers...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 27 March 2008]

If pulsating drums beating out Latin rhythms were enough to satisfy my taste for Latin American music, CARNIVAL OF RHYTHM would be an ideal musical short.

However, the songs chosen for the KATHERINE DUNHAM DANCE TROUPE are not at all memorable (or even stirring), her voice on a "song of sorrow" is enough to create a wail of protests from sensitive musician ears, and the dance troupe itself is not given imaginative enough material to work with.

So, in short, it's something you can easily afford to skip. The opening with the sound of voodoo drums promises something that it never delivers. The studio-painted sets look garish and cheap for scenes that are supposed to be taking place outdoors during morning, afternoon and evening. There's a clumsiness to the "Indian dance of courtship" that makes it more laughable than exotic (or erotic) and the narration concludes that the men return from their work shift "untamed, savage as the night", hinting that the women will soon have a night full of "love's fulfillment".

Summing up: Unworthy of the Dunham troupe--full of clichés and silly in concept.

I own two Portuguese to English dictionaries . . .

[cricket30 · 5/10 · 29 January 2015]

. . . which is a must have for any CARNIVAL OF RHYTHUM viewers. That's because this 18-minute musical short from 1941 has never been subtitled in either English or Portuguese (and the songs most likely have not been previously translated into English). Combining my skills of lip reading and phonetic transmutation (aided by my pair of dictionaries), here is what the foreign lady (and her choruses) are singing: First Song--"Why is the clock upside down, why are so many boys wearing blue dungarees; why is there a rope around my waist, and who's that reeling me in?" Second Song--"Where have all the boys gone, why don't we have any soprano chicks; how come we still hear drumming, isn't it time that we ate? Third Song--"The boys are back in town, now you can see who's playing the drums; We could limbo if only we had a stick, the cobra would be rising if only we had a snake." (This translation is copyright 2015 by the Koch Brothers, because things go better with Koch.)