Film Clip Find: "Black Music from 1940s"

Film Clip Find posts - a place to archive discoveries while going down the rabbit hole of research

Description: a collection of film shorts featuring African-American singers of the 1940s

Why I like this clip: beautiful singing from many artists I have not been exposed to; African-American performers get to be themselves, not exaggerated caricatures--so refreshing!

Length - 28:05

Unable to view? Click here. 

Ciao til next time!

Dancers in the Dark (1932)

This is part of Hot and Bothered: The Films of 1932 Blogathon hosted by Aurora at Once Upon a Screen and Theresa at CineMaven's Essays from the Couch. For more steamy posts, click Day 1 and Day 2.

The Task

*To write about a film from 1932
*I chose Dancers in the Dark sight unseen because of the topic (dancers!) and Miriam Hopkins.

The Film

In the film, taxi dancer Gloria (Miriam Hopkins) and saxophone player Floyd (William Collier Jr.) are in love and want to get married. He is willing to forgive her past, which may be worse than he thinks, but he insists he doesn't need to know. Bandleader Duke (Jack Oakie) grew up with Floyd and sees him as a brother. He believes Floyd deserves better than the fallen Gloria. Duke arranges for Floyd to take a four-week out-of-town job, hoping his absence will cause Gloria to reveal her true colors. Side note: At one time, Duke was also in love with Gloria, and she had a crush on him.

Miriam Hopkins, William Collier Jr., Jack Oakie

Battleground (1949)

Freedom is not free.

On this Independence Day, I would like to remember all those who fought for the freedom we enjoy by sharing Battleground (1949), a World War II film with authentic details and realistic characters.

The movie is further fitting because one of its stars is George Murphy, today's birthday boy.

Murphy is bottom right.

Dancing Legs Quiz ~ July 2016 Edition

Take a look at the following partial pictures. Each pair belongs to a dancer whose birthday is this month. Name the dancer. Then give yourself a bonus point if you can name the movie.

1)

2)

3)

4)

Good luck!