Bubbling Over
About Bubbling Over
Ethel Peabody keeps a Harlem flat while her husband Samson sleeps through a pin and jumps up the moment lunch is announced. His relatives, a quartet, move in and leave the housework to her. She finds out they are traveling men, tells them to keep traveling, and puts them out. When the dining-room lights come back on, the guests' clothes are gone.
Cast & crew
More about Bubbling Over
Leigh Jason directed. Burnet Hershey wrote it. Monroe Shaff produced, with Meyer Davis as associate producer. Joseph Ruttenberg photographed it. RKO released the short in 1934. Ethel Waters plays Ethel. Hamtree Harrington plays Samson. The Southernaires play the relatives. Frank L. Wilson plays Swami River, a clairvoyant.
Themes
Background
An all-Black musical short on the RKO program in 1934, built around Waters and a jubilee quartet rather than a feature plot.
Look
Joseph Ruttenberg photographed the short.
Music
Ethel Waters sings "Taking Your Time." The Southernaires sing "Hang Your Hat in a Harlem Flat."
Preservation
A print survives. The copyright was not renewed.
Notes
- The Southernaires are billed by voice: Homer Smith, first tenor; Lowell Peters, second tenor; Jay Stone Toney, baritone; William W. Edmonson, bass and narrator.
- Harrington's character is also called Presbee Peabody on some cast lists.
- Waters sings "Taking Your Time." The quartet sings "Hang Your Hat in a Harlem Flat.
- RKO distributed it. It is not a Warner Bros. Vitaphone short.
- The copyright was not renewed. A public-domain print runs about 19 and a half minutes.
Scenes
- Ethel sticks a pin in Samson. He sleeps through it and gets up for lunch.
- The Southernaires settle into the apartment and sing.
- The lights return in the dining room and the clothes have been taken.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Bubbling_Over)