''St. Louis Blues'' is a 1929 American two-reel

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

starring

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

. The early

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

features Smith in an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

speakeasy of the

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

era singing the

W. C. Handy William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musici ...

standard, " St. Louis Blues". Directed by Dudley Murphy, it is the only known film of Bessie Smith, and the soundtrack is her only recording not controlled by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. Bessie Smith had a hit on the song in 1925 and Handy himself asked Bessie Smith to appear in the movie. Handy co-authored the film and was the musical director. The film was a dramatization of the song, a woman left alone by her roving man. It features a band that included

James P. Johnson James Price Johnson (February 1, 1894 – November 17, 1955) was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key ...

on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, Bernard Addison on guitar and banjo, as well as the Hall Johnson Choir with some thrilling harmonies at the end. The film has an all

cast. Bessie Smith co-stars with Jimmy Mordecai as the boyfriend and Isabel Washington as the other woman. It was filmed in June 1929 in

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...

. The film is about 16 minutes long. In 2006, this version was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was rumored for a long time to have been banned as demeaning and to have become

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

. Neither rumor was true, but when a print was found in Mexico in the mid-1940s, the event was treated as a significant development, even though copies had, in fact, been available elsewhere. "In 1950, a group of white liberals petitioned the NAACP to buy and destroy the print found in Mexico, which they believed to be the only copy extant."

Cast

as Herself * Hall Johnson Choir as Themselves *

as Pianist (uncredited) * Alec Lovejoy as Bit Role (uncredited) *

Jimmy Mordecai Jimmy Mordecai (July 11, 1905 - May 7, 1966) also known as James Mordecai was a Harlem-based jazz tap dancer in the 1920s and 1930s. He featured in the 1929 short film ''St. Louis Blues (1929 film)'' starred in the 1930 Vitaphone Varieties musica ...

as Jimmy the Pimp (uncredited) * Thomas Morris as Cornetist (uncredited) *

Isabel Washington Isabel "Belle" Geraldine Washington Powell (May 23, 1908 – May 1, 2007) was a dancer, showgirl, and actress during the Harlem Renaissance. She was the first wife of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and after their divorce, she went on to work in the Har ...

(uncredited) * Bernard Addison as Plectrist (uncredited)

References

External links

*''St. Louis Blues'' essa

by Mark Cantor at

*
Bessie Smith's ''St. Louis Blues'' (1929 film)
at the Red Hot Jazz Archive *''St. Louis Blues'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 {{ISBN, 0826429777, pages 161-16

1929 films 1929 short films 1929 drama films 1920s musical drama films American musical drama films American black-and-white films African-American films Articles containing video clips Films directed by Dudley Murphy United States National Film Registry films 1920s English-language films 1920s American films