Murder with Music

To get it out of the way at the beginning, the film was made in either late 1946 or early 1947, not 1941. We know this for two reasons: (1) In the scene in the secretary's office, there's a poster on the wall for Stepin Fetchit's movie "Big Timers", which was a 1945 film, and (2) there was no "Nellie Hill" (or "Nelle" as it's misspelled in the credits) in 1941; Nellie Harrell didn't marry Charles Wesley Hill until 1942. The acting is horrendous; fortunately, the music is really good. Not a spoiler, but ask yourself this: "how, exactly, do you know the piano player is dead?"

This movie was originally shot as "Mistaken Identity", although it's unclear if it was ever released at the time. It was then cut up, some new scenes filmed, and reassembled as "Murder With Music" (the scenes from "Mistaken Identity" were intercut as flashbacks).

The story is told with the wraparound gimmick of newspaper editor Bob Howard on the phone, trying to get the story of the murder in time for his edition. He appears occasionally to remind the audience that, yes, this is a murder, and not just the story of Nellie Hill, trying to break into show business, with men anxious to hellp her make connections/ The actual murder takes place a couple of minutes before the end credits, and is promptly solved.

It's an excuse for the second part of the title, with good performances by Noble Sissle and his band, ad a couple of good, energetic dancing acts. Like many race movies of the era, it's not much as cinema, but is a lot of fun showing off contemporary musical acts.

So is a movie worth watching when the direction is even clunkier than the acting, when the acting with only one or two exceptions is embarrassingly amateurish, when the plot is chopped up and dull, when the jokes and comedy relief aren't just flat they're concave, and when the murder in the title is barely squeezed in 55 minutes into the 58 minute run time? Yes, but just barely.

Murder with Music is one of the movies featuring black actors and entertainers that Hollywood cranked out to fill America's segregated (officially or de factor) movie theaters in the Thirties, Forties and early Fifties. The name of this game was minimal budgets and production values, but with lots of musical numbers. The plots are almost irrelevant. This one features Lola (Nellie Hill), a singer in the nightclub owned by Bill Smith (Ken Renard). Lola has suitors, including an escaped convict, a piano player and a reporter. With off-and-on flashbacks we see the comedy mix-ups and mistaken motives that are played mostly for laughs. As time passes, this plot becomes really tiresome. The acting doesn't help much. Nellie Hill evidently only made two movies. She was a fine-looking young woman with a bright and warming smile, a first-class vocalist and an awful actress. Ken Renard, who had a long career mainly in secondary roles, especially in television, carries the acting load. He's assured and competent. The movie's value is that in 58 minutes nine major musical numbers are squeezed in. We have songs by Hill, tap-dancing duos, a comedy song well sung by a large man I couldn't find a credit for, plus Noble Sissle and his orchestra in some fine swing numbers. There's a production number supposedly being shown on a primitive television set that is gobstopping: Chorus girls dressed mainly in bandanas and bananas dance and stomp about telling us to "flip your lip, I'm a bangie from Ubangy." There are, however, two first class (and totally forgotten) songs. "Too Late, Baby" by Sidney Easton and Gus Smith is a clever swing number and "Can't Help It" by Skippy Williams is a bluesy torch song with a fine melody...

It ain't right to love someone the way I love you like I do. It ain't right to love someone that don't love you.

I can't help it if I love you and you're cheatin' on me, too. It ain't right but I can't help it 'cause I do.

I'll wash and dry your dishes. I'll clean and make your bed. I'll work and slave around you 'Til my face turns cherry red.

I can't help it if I want to work and slave to be with you. It ain't right but I can't help it 'cause I do.

Interesting to see a movie made for a black audience with an all-black cast at a time of segretion in the U. S. Some very good singing and dancing, especially Skippy Williams and his Orchestra. Clunky editing and acting and a not-good script, but interesting to see an early television which, at the time would have cost arond $395 (nearly one-third of the all male annual income - black men earned 0.6 of the white wage in 1940), and well out of the range of most Americans, let alone the target audience. The singer was clearly doing VERY well. Overall, best missed except for the historical context.

Murder with Music (1941)

** (out of 4)

Nellie Hill plays Lola, a wonderful singer who finds herself caught up with three very different men. Soon one of the men are murdered and we must determine who the guilty party is.

MURDER WITH MUSIC is another low-budget race film that suffers from various technical issues but all of them stems from the fact that the production just didn't have much money. With that said, if you're a fan of these movies then you'll find this one to be mildly entertaining thanks to everything going on except for the plot.

The actual plot dealing with the murder takes up very little of the running time. At just a hour there's not much of a running time to begin with but the majority of it is devoted to various nightclub acts where we see and hear some good musical numbers. There's obviously nothing here that you'd consider a classic but I still found the musical numbers to be entertaining in their own way.

The cinematography is a tad bit rough, the direction is soft and for the most part the performances are a bit rough. All of these things are to be expected but, as I said, the music makes the film somewhat entertaining.