Here's a guess, or hypothesis to try to otherwise confirm.   
Chaliapin.  Chaliapin, Caruso, and other major opera singers included  
folk songs and national melodies in their recital albums.  Both  
Caruso and Chaliapin were very popular and "Dark Eyes" was a song  
recorded by Chalipin (one recording in 1927).  This would enable the  
general audience to recognize it.  But there may be an entirely  
different vaudeville source, too (especially for the comic part).

Jesse Kalin

On Feb 24, 2007, at 9:55 PM, Larsson, Donald F wrote:

> This may seem like a strange question, but I wonder if anyone knows  
> why the Russian (actually Ukrainian) song "Ochi Chernye" ("Dark  
> Eyes") turns up in a number of American films in the 1930s, usually  
> in a comical way.  It's "practiced " endlessly by Mischa Auer in MY  
> MAN GODFREY, used as a ruse by Fred Astaire in SHALL WE DANCE, and  
> rather alarmingly trilled by Gloria Jean in NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN  
> EVEN BREAK.  It's clear that the song was well-known enough to  
> function as a signifier for "Russian-ness" but was its use prompted  
> by a particular recording or musician in the 1930s?
>
> Don Larsson
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> "Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.  It's what I've  
> never seen before that I recognize."  --Diane Arbus
>
>
> Donald F. Larsson
> Department of English, AH 230
> Minnesota State University
> Mankato, MN  56001
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> Office Phone: 507-389-2368
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