Stormy Weather (1943)

Black talent was given next to nothing by classic era Hollywood, but in “Stormy Weather,” black performers turn that nothing into a celebration of everything. Even if much of it - was still was out of reach.  Though the film has a white director in Andrew L. Stone, every…

theriverjordan

It is a marvel this ever got made. As far as I know, its production was not rocky, but this is a film with an almost entirely African-American cast made in 1943. Films with such a cast don't get made very often 70 years later. In 1943, it seems like an impossibility. But…

Sally Jane Black

To keep it short and simple: You're going to struggle to find more good vibes than this!

PUNQ

I won’t lie, I didn’t even know movies with all black casts existed in the 1940’s. It barely existed in the 2000s. But, despite it being an all black cast, they still somehow manage to throw blackface in there. Besides that, it’s very ahead of its time and really cool to…

Ryan Daniel

Lena Horne was so glamorous and her voice could easily make me cry. I literally do not understand how Bill Robinson was 65? Also, Jumpin’ Jive is one of the greatest big band tunes and then throw in that unreal dance by The Nicholas Brothers. WHAT A FINALE!!! And like, to a…

✨🥀 e m m é

It's impossible to divorce this from its troubling sociopolitical context (of course, that's true of everything), but if you could you'd surely have one of the most purely entertaining musicals ever made, every sequence is imbued with the absolute joy of virtuosic…

Joe

Cinematic Time Capsule 1943 Marathon - Film #69 🎶The jim, jam, jump if you jump and jive🎶 With talent like this who needs a plot? And my, my, my, ain’t this somethin’ - From Fats Waller’s Ain't Misbehavin; to Lena Horne’s Diga Diga Doing some Stormy Weather -…

📀 Cammmalot 📀

If you get to the part when Fats Waller comes on the scene and you don’t find you’ve got a big goofball smile on your face then you are probably not going to be a lot of fun at a sleepover. With that said, this was an interesting essay -…

SkaneNoise

When the Nicholas brothers started doing leap-frogging splits down a giant staircase I unconsciously let out this weird, loud yelping noise I have never heard myself make before, some odd combination of awestruck exhiliration and sympathetic third-party groin trauma. Their…

Those Eyebrows