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Clip description
George (George Wallace) impersonates a waiter at a swank nightclub in order to spy on the crooks who want to nobble his favourite horse. All of the club’s waiters are also performers, so George sings and dances for the patrons.
Curator’s notes
Wallace was famous as a singer as well as a comedian and dancer, although he rarely sings in his movies (see clip two of Gone to the Dogs, 1939, for another example). In this clip, he’s emulating and satirising two major stars – Al Jolson, the American ‘black face’ singer who starred in the first American feature-length talkie, The Jazz Singer (1927), and Charlie Chaplin (the moustache is the clue). Chaplin was a major influence on Wallace’s comedy, especially in the physicality of Wallace’s routines. Chaplin was famous for playing insolent waiters and Wallace adopts something of that character earlier in this scene.
