Customer Reviews

Race Movies: Hi-De-Ho/The Devil's Daughter/Beware/Reet, Petite, and Gone

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This is a fine collection of early Black American films from the 1930s and 40s. It begins with Cab Calloway in "Hi De Ho" (1947), a story of Cab fighting gangsters and a sluttish "girlfriend" (Jeni Le Gon as Minnie the Moocher-who he regrettably slaps early on in the film-shades of "Purple Rain") to achieve musical success and love with the right woman. Domestic violence issues aside, it's quite entertaining. "The Devils Daughter" (ca. 1939) features the legendary Nina Mae McKinney in a rather hokey but amusing tale about voodoo in Haiti. "Beware" is one of the best of Jazz comedian Louis Jordan's musical comedies. An interesting tale of his efforts to save a Black college (this was some 40 years before Spike Lee's "School Daze") from a crooked president. Lots of good music and clowning with a good story. LJ strikes again in "Reet Petite and Gone," not one of his better films, but some really entertaining songs and antics from LJ and femme fatale Mabel Lee. See these films and dig what Black Cinema was like prior to Superfly, Sweetback, and Spike Lee.

"Race movies," a genre unique to the United States between 1915 and 1947, were quite popular with black Southern audiences and in Northern industrial cities that had large African American communities. After the successful legal desegregation of the film industry in 1948, this type of movie vanished, literally. Today, only a fifth of the original 500 race films still exist.

SYNOPSES:

"Beware" - Ware College alumnus Louis Jordan brings his band to Ohio in an effort to save the financially-troubled institution. Classroom attendance soars once word gets out that Jordan is on campus, but the college CEO (and grandson of the founder) has other plans in the works.

"The Devil's Daughter" - A Harlem-born woman inherits a Jamaican banana plantation. After taking up residence there she is vexed by incessant drums, voodoo spells and a jealous half-sister.

"Hi-De-Ho" - Cab Calloway plays himself in this story of jealousy, intrigue and swing music. Cab hopes manager Nettie will help him become famous. Cab's girlfriend Minnie is jealous of the two, and imagines infidelities she seeks vengeance for. In between all this are some great songs by one of the finest bands ever.

"Reet, Petite, and Gone" - When an old-time bandleader dies, a sleazy lawyer alters his will so that the man's son and girlfriend get nothing. A slight story that's used as backdrop for several musical numbers.

A few other "all-black" musicals may be found on the MUSICALS CLASSICS 50 MOVIE PACK COLLECTION.

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Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.

(5.4) Beware (1946) - Louis Jordan/Frank L. Wilson/Emory Richardson/Valerie Black/Milton Woods

(3.4) The Devil's Daughter (1939) - Nina Mae McKinney/Jack Carter/Ida James/Willa Mae Lang

(5.5) Hi-De-Ho (1947) - Cab Calloway/Ida James/Jeni Le Gon/William Campbell

(6.8) Reet, Petite, And Gone (1947) - Louis Jordan/June Richmond/Milton Woods/Bea Griffith/David Bethea/Lorenzo Tucker

Movies for African-Americans, by African Americans; written, performed, directed by, produced by Aferican Americans. If you don't know where you came from, how do you know where you are going?