The Mills Brothers sing one of their signature tunes, and a paper cutout turns into a dancing Dorothy Dandridge in this soundie.
Soundies were short films, about three minutes in length. The were meant to be played on a machine called a Mills Panoram, a video jukebox that was typically to be found in bars, lounges, and similar venues. You put a dime in and got a performance from the ten on the machine. The movies would be changed weekly, and from 1940 through 1946, Mills and other companies produced more than two thousand soundies.
The song was written in 1915 by John Black, but after he sold it to a music publisher in 1922 for $25, it flopped. By the time the Mills Brothers recorded it in 1942, it was the B-side of a song I've never heard of. It didn't begin to chart until the following year, and hit #1 eighteen months after its release. Since then, it's become a classic.
