Public Domain Movies
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Billy Burt
Running Time: 1 mins Black & White
Starring: Three Canadian Capers
Black & White
Starring: Fats Waller, Myra Johnson, Hilda Brown
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: The Three Suns
The music group The Three Suns, perform the title song.
Running Time: 15 mins Black & White
Starring: Duke Ellington
Black and Tan (1929) is a musical short film written and directed by Dudley Murphy about a couple in the performing arts; it is set during the contemporary Harlem Renaissance in New York City. It is the first film to feature Duke Ellington and His Orchestra performing as a jazz band, and was also the film debut of actress Fredi Washington. The film is thought to express the emergence of African-American artists in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Rosalie Allen
Rosalie Allen yodels to her sailor boyfriend who is overseas during World War II. Inspired by the singing cowboys of the 1930s, Rosalie taught herself to sing and play her brother's guitar. Due to her work in radio, she became the first woman inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
1940's Soundie with a Latin feel
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: The Gordonairs from Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians
Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" is the fight song of the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech. The composition is based on "Son of a Gambolier", composed by Charles Ives in 1895, the lyrics of which are based on an old English and Scottish drinking song of the same name.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: June Barton, Emil Coleman Orchestra
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Maya's Pan-American Orchestra and Carlos and Zedra
Running Time: 1 mins Black & White
Women dance a mock Hawaiian dance in this 1940s soundie musical
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Thelma White and Her All-Girl Orchestra
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Ray Bloch & his Orchestra, featuring vocalist Carolyn Marsh.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: JOHNNY LONG & His Orchestra
In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town" is a popular song written by Ira Schuster and Jack Little with lyrics by Joe Young, published in 1932. Ted Lewis and His Band performed it in the film The Crooner in 1932.[1] His version was released as a single and it went to #1, where it remained for 10 weeks.
Running Time: 8 mins Black & White
Starring: Cab Calloway, Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra, Lena Horne
Cab Calloway performs two numbers at the Cotton Club, then takes his friends down to Harlem for a jitterbug party.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Harry Day, Della, The June Taylor Girls
Pretty standard Soundie with pretty dancing girls and a lead male dancer and his accompanying female dancer. This would all be passable except for the fact that the costumes for this is just gaga, the dancing girls are all wearing french baby doll costumes, the accompanying dancer, for some odd reason, is wearing this french maid outfit complete with apron, and FINALLY, the male dancer is wearing the most ultra-bizarre costume ever seen, ok, it looks like a tight one piece suit accompanied by a bolero jacket.
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Betty Jane Rhodes
Popular song written by Jule Styne with lyrics by Frank Loesser. Published in 1941 it was first performed in the 1942 Paramount Pictures film, Sweater Girl, by actress Betty Jane Rhodes. Composer Irving Berlin was a huge admirer of the song. He reportedly said that of all the songs by other composers he had heard, he would have been most proud to have written I Don't Want to Walk Without You. Writing of Berlin's praise for the song, Loesser wrote in his diary, "Irving Berlin came in today and spent a solid hour telling me that 'Walk' is the best song he ever heard. He played and sang it over, bar by bar, explaining why it's the best song he ever heard. I was flattered like crazy."In this soundie, Kaye Lorraine sings with Merle Pitt's Music Band. The waiter is played by Frank Wilcox. Trivia: Olive Oyl once serenaded Popeye with this song in a Popeye cartoon
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Yvonne De Carlo, Russell Mercer
Yvonne De Carlo sings herself to sleep, in her dreams she dances with a Latin dancer. She awakes to sing again.
Running Time: 120 mins Black & White
Starring: Lionel Hampton, The Larks (David Bowers, Orville
Concert variety show directed by Joseph Kohn & Leonard Reed filmed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York City, featuring a cast of popular.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: The Mel-Tones, Mel Tormé
The Mel-Tones relax with friends in their apartment and sing Lullaby of Broadway.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Jarabe Tapatío
Running Time: 10 mins Black & White
All musical Black Heritage films showcase rare musical Soundies by Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and more. From the 1920s thru the mid-1950s many films were made with all African-American casts for distribution to black cinemas and all-black audiences. These inexpensive but heartfelt little gems spanned all genres -- musical, dramatic, western, comedy and even horror -- and give a fascinating peak today inside a culture and world that has been largely overlooked by history. Musical Soundies from the 1940s have been put together into our Black Jazz Soundies for your enjoyment, and have been featured for exhibition in Black Heritage Programs for theaters and film societies.
Running Time: 13 mins Black & White
Soundies were three-minute American musical 16mm films, produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood, between 1940 and 1946, each containing a song, dance and/or band or orchestral number.
Running Time: 4 mins Black & White
Starring: Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle
Eubie Blake (piano) and Noble Sissle (vocal): "Broken Busted Blues" (composed by J. Edgar Dowell and Henry Troy) on Edison Blue Amberol 5041 (1925)
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Lee Sullivan
Featuring singer Lee Sullivan. Taken from the short film "Air Parade" (1938). Niela is tired of her children's hour radio program and with the help of Lee they frame the station's top executive so that she will get a break on a big time program.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Del Casino & his Orchestra
Del Casino and His Orchestra performing "One Look At You" in this soundie film from the 1940's.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Carolyn Grey and Teri Vance.
Pretty racy and cool for the day! Bikini's were banned in America then so we get the illusion of one. Still, one hot video fof the 40's! Carolyn Grey singing and Teri Vance doing solo dancing.
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Henny Youngman
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Starring: Joy Hodges
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens was a marimba-based musical group active from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s. They were based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and toured extensively.The lasting legacy of Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens is in "A Study In Brown", a two-minute black-and-white film made in early 1940.
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Harry Cool
Running Time: 2 mins Black & White
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Six Hits & A Miss and the all-women Lorraine Page Orchestr
1940's Soundie featuring Six Hits & A Miss and the all-women Lorraine Page Orchestra. The song's words & music by Will Harris & Victor Young
Running Time: 9 mins Black & White
Starring: Duke Ellington Billie Holiday
Duke Ellington plays his symphonic jazz piece ('A Rhapsody of Negro Life') with his orchestra against slice-of-life background scenes. The four movements: 1) The Laborers, 2) A Triangle: Dance, Jealousy, Blues, 3) A Hymn of Sorrow, 4) Harlem Rhythm.
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Niela Goodelle
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Ginger Harmon, Mercer Brothers
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Vince Barnett, Leo Diamond, Jimmie Dodd
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Lane Truesdale
The catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" (or, alternatively, "Who's Yehudi?") originated when violinist Yehudi Menuhin was a guest on the popular radio program of Bob Hope, where sidekick Jerry Colonna, apparently finding the name itself humorous, repeatedly asked "Who's Yehudi?" Colonna continued the gag on later shows even though Menuhin himself was not a guest, turning "Yehudi" into a widely understood late 1930s slang reference for a mysteriously absent person.
Running Time: 3 mins Black & White
Starring: Danny Hocktor, Gai Moran