A Rhapsody of Negro Life 10 mins., black & white, 16mm. FAB 6260 Paramount Pictures, 1935. Director: Fred Waller; Photography: William Steiner, Jr. Valburn/Ellington Collection of the Library of Congress This film of extraordinary historic and esthetic interest features Duke Ellington at the piano presumably composing the title symphony, crosscut with shots of a band […]
1937 Directed by Sam Wood This very fun Marx Brothers film is considered among the 100 funniest films of all times. In it Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers dance to All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm. Whitey himself can be seen on the sidelines. He is identifiable by the streak of white in his hair. This scene, like […]
USA 1937 82 mins. Black and White Republic Pictures A musical revue with an all-star cast that includes Cab Calloway and his Orchestra, Ted Lewis and his Orchestra, Louis Prima and his Band, Gene Autry, and Joe DiMaggio. Manhattan Merry-Go-Round has a storyline about gangsters taking over a radio station. Variety Magazine of the day […]
RKO Benjamin Stoloff 1938 When Frankie Manning finally got to see the Whiteys Lindy Hoppers sequence of the 1938 film “Radio City Revels” it was well into the 1990s. He was disappointed to discover that most of his shine had been cut from the dance sequence in the film. This may be because it violated the […]
1939 excerpt from the film KEEP PUNCHING (also a short known as Jittering Jitterbugs) A film clip featuring Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. It was originally part of the black-cast film Keep Punching and was also released as the short “Jittering Jitterbugs” in1943. Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers perform a Big Apple routine which was choreographed by Frankie Manning. […]
1941 Directed by H. C. Potter This movie, based on a hit Broadway play, showcases Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers dancing the most famous and most spectacular Lindy Hop scene ever preserved on film. The dancing was choreographed by Frankie Manning. This scene featuring Black dancers has only a superficial connection to the rest of the film, […]
Also known as Cottontail Soundie * 1941 The Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers group that appears in this soundie was also known as the The Harlem Congaroos. They were the undisputed stars of all the groups of Whitey’s dancers. After completing the filming of Hellzapoppin’, the group had a contract to do a second film for Universal […]
Soundie 1943 Dancers: Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers: Leon James and Dottie Mae Johnson Russell Williams and Connie Hill While most of the men in Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers were drafted to fight in World War 2, Leon James and Russell Williams were disqualified from service due to poor eyesight. Here they are in 1943 holding the fort […]
Directed by Gjon Mili Produced by Norman Granz 10 minutes 1944 This film of top jazz musicians is beautiful to the ears and the eyes. The photographer Gjon Mili, who is responsible for the 1943 LIFE Magazine cover story on Lindy Hop, shot this film as though it were a series of photographs. There are […]
All-American News 1948 Director: Josh Binney Producer: E. M. Glucksman Story/Screenplay: Hal Seeger Photographer: Lester Lang Editor: L. Hesse Music: Rene J. Hall. 73 mins., black & white, 35mm. FGC 2380-83 The Congaroo Dancers do a Lindy Hop routine next to a prop palm tree. They dance extremely fast with excellent execution to the music […]
Part 1: Jazz Dance from the Turn of the Century ’til 1950 1950 Produced, directed, edited, and narrated by Mura Dehn. Camera: Herbert Matter Mura Dehn was a Russian emigre to the United States in the 1930s. She was so impressed with the African-American social dance that she saw in New York City that it […]
Guest Post by Karen Campos McCormack In March 2018 I was lucky to spend a month in New York, in Harlem, researching the history of Lindy hop thanks to the support of the Frankie Manning Foundation. I had previously researched the history of swing via the internet, Amazon, second hand bookshops and the limited […]
