Product Details

• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Shanachie
• VHS Release Date: June 15, 1998
• Run Time: 75 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 1566332036
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #458,705 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Predecessor of things to come, October 30, 2001

By 

Andre M. "brnn64" (Mt. Pleasant, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Birmingham Black Bottom: First Black Talkies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video contains the first sound comedy shorts that featured Black actors. They were inspired by the wild parodies of Black life that the White writer Octavus Roy Cohen wrote in books like "Polished Ebony" and "Dark Days and Black Knights" in the 20s.

Not too funny by contemporary standards. The supposed Black dialect is so exaggerated and poorly recorded that it requires several viewings to understand the dialougue. Plus the action is quite stiff, given the limitations of early sound film. However, there are some likeable performances. The lovely Roberta Hyson is fun to watch as the fiesty female lead. It's fun to watch her match wits with the equally tenacious Evelyn Preer. Spencer Williams (later Andy of "Amos & Andy" fame) is also good to watch playing different characters. (BTW, Cohen was later a writer for the A&A show).

The stories, however, are clearly the predecessors of the kind of high-energy humor that later generations would see in "Amos and Andy," "Sanford and Son," Martin," etc. Interesting mainly for historical reasons.