Lucky Millinder Movies
This installment of Storyville Films' Jazz Legends series includes a number of musical performances culled from several classic Hollywood films. The Black Big Bands features such songs as "Jitterbug (Minnie the Moocher)" by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, "Gator Serenade" by Andy Kirk and His Orchestra, and "Rhythm in a Riff" by Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- 1988
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Storyville Films presents this series of short music programs, originally produced between 1941 and 1947. Called "Soundies," these popular films were shown in a jukebox machine called a Panoram. In Harlem Roots, Vol. 1: The Big Bands, four of the most famous big band leaders perform, including Duke Ellington ("I Got it Bad, and That Ain't Good"), Cab Calloway ("Foo a Little Boogaloo"), Count Basie ("Take Me Back Baby"), and Lucky Millinder ("Hello, Bill"). ~ Alice Day, Rovi
- 1986
Volume 1 of this 2 video set feature title and film selections from black jazz bands such as The Lonesome Road (Tharpe/Millinder 1941), Jungle Jig (Dandridge 1941) and Hot in the Groove (Hawkins 1942). ~ Rovi
Josh Binney directed this wonderful, nostalgia-soaked vaudeville revue with an all-black cast headed by the delightful Moms Mabley. Because films like this were aimed specifically at segregated inner-city black audiences, they were treated like disposable product by the studios, which offered them a surprising amount of leeway in terms of material. Drug jokes and sexual innuendos, which would surely have been censored in mainstream films in 1948, rub elbows with some truly bizarre novelty acts including a dancer with one arm and one leg, an acrobat dressed like a monkey, and a genial "let's put on a show to keep the wicked landlord from evicting us" plot line. Mabley does her usual comedy and tap dances, Bull Moose Jackson sings, and many popular African-American acts perform. Binney was something of an expert at films like this, having directed Hi-De-Ho for Cab Calloway, Killer Diller with Nat King Cole and Mabley, as well as this film within the space of a year or so. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- 1946
One of the few all-black productions of the 1940s to garner attention in the "white" trade press, Beware is a vehicle for bandleader Louis Jordan, here cast as a college alumnus named Lucius Brokenshire Jordan. Thanks to the economic duplicity of its benefactor's grandson, Jordan's alma mater runs out of money. When he learns about the college's plight, our hero not only stages an impromptu fund-raising show, but also settles the hash of the crooked grandson. In its own modest way, the film pokes fun at the snobbery of college faculty members who look down their noses at graduates who enter show business rather than pursue more "worthwhile" careers. Costarring with Louis Jordan are Frank Wilson and Valerie Black, both cast members of Broadway's Anna Lucasta. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Valerie Black
- 1940
Featuring an all African-American cast, this gritty crime drama is set in Harlem and centers on a club singer who suffers great tragedy after he accidentally witnesses a gangland hit. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Juanita Hall, Mamie Smith, (more)
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