drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
with an all-black cast (a genre at the time called "
race film
The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United
States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produce ...
George Randol
George Randol (1895–1973) was an actor, screenwriter, director, and producer of films in the United States. In 1938 he was honored as an influential film executive in a newspaper writeup of the "Negro" film industry.
Randol was born in Buena V ...
, directed by
Arthur Dreifuss
Arthur Dreifuss (sometimes credited as Dreyfuss; March 25, 1908 – December 31, 1993)Sack Amusement Enterprises and
Astor Pictures
Astor Pictures was a motion picture distribution company in the United States from 1930 to 1963. It was founded by Robert M. Savini (29 August 1886 – 29 April 1956). Astor specialized in film re-releases. It later released independently m ...
Corp.
Plot summary
Two men, Tommy McCoy and Dude Markey, are in love with Nita, a beautiful
nightclub singer
A nightclub act is a production, usually of nightclub music or comedy, designed for performance at a nightclub, a type of drinking establishment, by a nightclub performer such as a nightclub singer or nightclub dancer, whose performance may ...
/dancer. Markey robs a jewelry store and gives the haul to a local gangster. Later, he steals the jewelry from the gangster's safe and frames McCoy for the robbery in the hope that the gangster will kill him, thereby getting rid of his rival for the lovely Nita.
Cast
*
Monte Hawley
Monte Hawley (? - November 30, 1950) was an American actor from Chicago, Illinois.
Biography
He began his entertainment career as one of the original Lafayette Players. He studied under Richard B. Harrison and, after moving to New York City, acte ...
as Jim McCoy
*
Jeni Le Gon
Jeni LeGon (born Jennie Ligon; August 14, 1916 – December 7, 2012), also credited as Jeni Le Gon, was an American dancer, dance instructor, and actress. She was one of the first African-American women to establish a solo career in tap da ...
as Nita
* Edward Thompson as Dude Markey
*Florence O'Brien as Sally
*
Freddie Jackson
Frederick Anthony Jackson (born October 2, 1956) is an American singer. Originally from New York, Jackson began his professional music career in the late 1970s with the California funk band Mystic Merlin. Among his well–known R&B/soul hits are ...
Maceo Bruce Sheffield
Maceo Bruce Sheffield (September 8, 1897 – August 20, 1959) was a police detective and an actor in American films. He worked in Los Angeles as a policeman before acting and assisting in the production of films with African American casts. He was ...
as Murray Howard
*Charles Hawkins
*Jack Clisby
*
Tom Southern
Tom Southern, also known as Tommy or Thomas Southern, was an actor in American film and stage productions as well as a songwriter. He was a theater actor with the Lafayette Players.
In 1933, he wrote several songs together with Lionel Hampton. Fo ...
*Vernon McCalla
*Charles Gordon as Lanny
*Arthur Ray
* F.E. Miller as Nightclub Comedian
*
Shelton Brooks
Shelton Brooks (May 4, 1886September 6, 1975) was a Canadian-born African American composer of popular music and jazz. He was known for his ragtime and vaudeville style, and wrote some of the biggest hits of the first third of the 20th century.
...
as Singer in Nightclub Floorshow
*
Juanita Moore
Juanita Moore (October 19, 1914 – January 1, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actress.
She was the fifth black actor to be nominated for an Academy Award in any category, and the third in the Supporting Actress category at a ...
as Nightclub Patron
Soundtrack
*Shelton Brooks - "Hole in the Wall" (Written by Shelton Brooks)
*"Jitterbugs Cuttin' Rugs" (Written by Shelton Brooks)
*"Gettin' in Right with You" (Written by Peter Tinturin and
Harry Tobias
Harry Tobias (September 11, 1895 – December 15, 1994) was an American lyricist. Like his younger brother Charles, he is an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Born in New York City, United States, but raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, ...