Mills Blue Rhythm Band

Here's another of the many musical shorts that Roy Mack directed for the Warner Brothers, with a good, hot band and some fine Black entertainers, including the wonderful Fredi Washington showing off her sparkling personality and great looks.

It starts at a night club, and then continues at a rent party set high in an Art Deco penthouse. The Mills Blue Rhythm Band offers some fine renditions of "The Peanut Vendor" and other, less remembered songs, there's some fine dancing, and if a good time was not had by all in the theater audience, they must have been trying to be miserable.

The Mills Blue Rhythm Band, which worked under many names, was a regular at the Cotton Club for many years. It was formed in 1930 under the leadership of Bingle Madison, and disbanded in 1938, with the name revived in 1947 for a couple of recording sessions. Irving Mills, for whom the band was named, was not the leader, but the manager.

I loved the first 95% of this short. The title band, the dancers, and the singer, Sally Gooding, are all excellent. I have happily re-watched this short for all those reasons. Note: Fredi Washington is listed in IMDb as a dancer, but her character (Sally Gooding's cousin) does not dance in the film.

The film's all black cast are shown well-dressed and mostly successful performers and patrons. I was originally impressed by that, given the film was copyrighted in 1933. Unfortunately the final moments of the short are spoiled by a visual reminder to the audience that this type of music and these characters are all recently "from the jungle", denigrating both the music and any appearance that an all-black cast enjoying an evening at a nightclub is comparable to white audience members doing the same thing.

Mills Blue Rhythm Band (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Vitaphone musical has a group of people seeing various dance and musical acts at a nightclub and then they travel to a party where they see even more. This short from Warner is pretty special for a couple reasons. For one it features an all-black cast, which certainly wasn't the norm back in 1934. It was rather refreshing seeing something that didn't feature blacks in a supporting role or being played by white actors in blackface. Another reason why this short is so special is that we get some great musical numbers including songs by Blues McAllister and Sally Gooding. The dance numbers are very good and come from what we would call swing and jazz. The musical numbers are very well done and you can tell that director Mack put a lot of effort into them.

This is an excellent Vitaphone short--with great music and terrific dancing. I was surprised, then, that the Mills Blue Rhythm Band wasn't more famous. I'd never heard of them and this is their only credit listed on IMDb. Their music is very typical of the nice stuff that was being performed by other black performers at New York's "Cotton Club" and aside from a few (such as Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway), most of the rest have been forgotten. It's a shame, as I really enjoyed this and the great tap dancing.

However, this is a short that some today might take offense to--so I am warning you. One character is the stereotypical black man of the time and at the end, there is a song and dance number with folks decked out in ridiculous supposedly native attire. Aside from putting a bone through all their noses, it couldn't have been much worse. It's a shame as otherwise this is a great short and one that will impress.