#756) Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert (1939)

#756) Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert (1939)

Filmed by Hearst Metronome Newsreel

Class of 2001

The Plot: By 1939, African American contralto Marian Anderson was one of the most celebrated singers in both America and Europe. Her annual Washington D.C. concerts sponsored by Howard University grew in popularity each year, meaning the university had to seek larger venues annually. When Howard approached the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) for use of the Constitution Hall (D.C.’s largest venue at the time) for Anderson’s 1939 concert, they were turned down due to the venue’s Whites-only policy. Anderson’s manager Sol Hurok took this story to the press, and the discrimination made headlines. With support from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (who resigned from the DAR in protest) and Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, Marian Anderson performed a free concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, April 9th, 1939, for an integrated crowd of over 75,000 people. What followed has been described as “the concert that awakened America”, and a pivotal moment for American civil rights.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives the footage its proper historical context and praises Anderson’s “gooseflesh-inducing” performance. I have never heard the phrase “gooseflesh-inducing” before, and I doubt I ever will again.

But Does It Really?: As a historic event, “Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert” should absolutely be on the NFR. My one quibble: There’s only about five to six minutes of surviving footage of the concert, and most of that is Harold Ickes’ introduction. Marian’s only on camera for about a minute! I can give this footage a historical pass, but the corresponding NBC radio broadcast of the concert is a much better documentation (see “Other notes” and “Listen to This” for more information about the broadcast).

Everybody Gets One: Born to a devout Christian family in Philadelphia, Marian Anderson began performing in her church choir at age six, which led to singing at local functions for as much as 50 cents (almost $20 today). In 1925, Anderson won a singing competition and performed with the New York Philharmonic, launching her professional career. America’s Jim Crow laws of the time meant significantly less venues for Anderson to perform in, so she toured Europe in the 1930s, receiving praise from the likes of Arturo Toscanini, who said, “What I have heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years.” Upon her return to America, Anderson still faced segregation laws, with the Lincoln Memorial concert becoming a major turning point for the small but growing civil rights movement. Despite her role in this movement, Anderson never considered herself an activist, citing her participation in civil rights as “a culmination of the goodwill of people who…saw me as I am, and not as somebody else.”

Other notes

  • Marian Anderson’s concert was filmed by Hearst Metronome Newsreel and edited into a 90-second segment of their “News of the Day” series titled “Nation’s Capital Gets a Lesson in Tolerance”. The surviving raw footage includes most of Harold Ickes’ introductory speech, a few crowd shots, a few establishing shots of the National Mall, and two verses of Marian singing “America” (aka “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”). The edited newsreel uses the first verse of “America” and a few establishing shots, making all that footage of Ickes’ speech a huge waste of time and film. The 90-second time allotment gives you an idea of how this concert was covered by the press at the time; newsworthy, but no need for extensive coverage. 
  • At a time when America was digging itself out of a depression and trying to avoid another world war, the mistreatment of its Black citizens definitely got put on the backburner. While booking a one-time concert for a Black artist is more performative (for lack of a better word) than any political action or legislature, it’s a step in the right direction, and downright radical by 1939 standards.
  • Another disappointing but important piece of information regarding this concert: The DAR weren’t the only group to turn Howard University down. D.C.’s Central High School also wouldn’t lend their auditorium for the Anderson concert, even after news of the DAR rejection became public. Also, when Marian arrived in D.C. with her mother and sister the day of the concert, they stayed at a private residence due to the segregation laws of D.C. hotels.
  • You can imagine my increasing frustration as I watched Interior Secretary Ickes prattle on for two, three, four minutes of this very short video. Get to Marian, already!
  • Even in her brief filmed appearance in the available footage, Marian does not disappoint. I mean, I knew she was good, but damn what a voice. Contralto singing is no joke, and Anderson delivers a clear, stirring “America”, devoid of any distracting vocal flourishes while still putting her distinct stamp on it. Thank goodness there’s more audio of this.
  • Side Note: Has Audra McDonald ever been approached about playing Marian Anderson? McDonald’s classical soprano comes closest to matching Anderson’s voice, and she has played her share of famous singers/civil rights figures in the past. Somebody get on this!
  • Shoutout to Kosti Vehanen, providing Anderson’s piano accompaniment for the concert. Vehanen started as a solo pianist in his native Finland, but became a much sought-after accompanist, collaborating with Marian Anderson for most of the 1930s. He even wrote a book about their time together: 1941’s “Marian Anderson: A Portrait”.
  • Yeah, the radio broadcast is the way to go. It’s a half hour and you get so much more of the concert, plus color commentary by NBC describing the event and giving some biographical info on Anderson. All that seems to be missing from the radio broadcast is Anderson’s performance of “My Soul Is Anchored to the Lord”, her encore of “Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen”, and her brief closing remarks thanking the audience.
  • Man, between this and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, 1939 was a great year for the Lincoln Memorial. This is the best press Abe’s gotten since Gettysburg.

Legacy

  • Marian Anderson would finally perform at the Constitution Hall in 1943 for an American Red Cross benefit. While the DAR had reversed its segregation booking policy by this point, Anderson did not consider her performance at that venue any sort of victory, symbolic or otherwise. Anderson retired from performing in 1965, living quietly in Danbury, Connecticut with her husband, only returning to the limelight to pick up one of her many lifetime achievement awards. Marian Anderson died in 1993 at age 96.
  • I was all set to give this post the subtitle “Voice of Freedom” until I learned that’s the name of a 2021 episode of “American Experience” chronicling Marian Anderson and this concert. If only I had gotten to this post earlier…
  • Hearst Metronome News ceased production in 1967 (one of the last theatrical newsreels to fold) and in 1981 the entire Hearst Metronome catalog was acquired by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. At some point, the Marian Anderson concert raw footage was reconstructed by UCLA with support from (among others) the National Film Preservation Foundation, which led to its NFR induction (or possibly vice versa).
  • Marian Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial concert held the record for “Most Important Historical Event in Front of the Lincoln Memorial” for a solid 24 years. Not so coincidentally, Marian Anderson attended the March on Washington in 1963, and performed “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” in almost the exact same spot in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Listen to This: The National Recording Registry inducted the NBC radio broadcast of Marian Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial concert in 2008. NRR regular Cary O’Dell is on hand with a very comprehensive essay.

Bonus Clip: Eddie Murphy performed his first stand-up special “Delirious” at the DAR Constitution Hall in 1983, and closes out his set with a shout-out to Marian Anderson (who he erroneously calls “Mary”).

#755) Cab Calloway Home Movies (1948-1951)

#755) Cab Calloway Home Movies (1948-1951)

OR “Hi-De-Ho-Hum”

Filmed by Cab and Zulme “Nuffie” Calloway

Class of 2022

The “Cab Calloway Home Movies” can be viewed online at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. Of the six documented reels of film, reels 1, 2, and 4 are available for online viewing (roughly 35 minutes).

The Plot: Cab Calloway is best remembered as the epitome of scat and jazz singing in the 1930s, but did you know he also filmed home movies? “Cab Calloway Home Movies” offer us brief glimpses of Calloway’s family life in Long Beach, Long Island with his wife and children, plus footage from family vacations, as well as from Calloway’s South American performance tour. And…yeah, that’s about it.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives a brief overview of the collection, with the only superlative going to the “handsome” footage. Huh.

But Does It Really?: Maybe I’m experiencing some NFR home movies fatigue, but why is this on the list? No disrespect to Cab Calloway and his family, but as wonderful as it is to see this footage, I’ve tried to justify its inclusion on the NFR, and I keep running into other titles that cover the same ground. Home movies from a prominent 20th century entertainer? “Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies”. Amateur footage of a Black community? “The Solomon Sir Jones Films”. Documentation of Cab Calloway? “Stormy Weather” and “The Blues Brothers”. All these films made the NFR before “Cab Calloway Home Movies”, which makes its inclusion seemingly redundant. I’m glad the “Cab Calloway Home Movies” have been preserved and made available, but I’m still on the fence about their NFR standing.

Everybody Gets One: Cabel Calloway III started taking singing lessons and performing in night clubs when he was a teenager. After honing his craft in Chicago, Calloway moved to New York and found himself performing at the Cotton Club with the Missourians, who quickly changed their name to Cab Calloway and His Orchestra. In 1931, Calloway recorded “Minnie the Moocher”, which became his signature song and the first record by an African American artist to sell one million copies. By decade’s end Calloway would also become a star on radio and in the movies, including NFR titles “Stormy Weather” and “Snow-White”. At the time of these home movies, Cab was married to his second wife Zulme “Nuffie” Calloway, and the two were living in Long Beach raising their three daughters: Chris, Cecilia, and Cabella.

Other notes

  • Reel 1 is the Calloways’ trip to Trinidad and Tobago (presumably on vacation). It’s mostly drive-by shots of different buildings: post offices, police stations, even an outdoor school. We also get to see raw sugar cane being processed into sugar. I was not expecting this film to be so educational.
  • Reel 2 brings us back to Long Island, where Cab and Nuffie are enjoying some family time with their newborn (I’m not sure on the timeline, but I think that’s Cecilia). In contrast with Calloway’s boisterous energy on-stage, it’s nice seeing him relaxed and cuddling up with his kids. And those babies are so cute! I just want to invent time travel, go back in time, and pinch those cheeks!
  • Each individual reel of “Cab Calloway” has its own listing on the Smithsonian website which describes the footage in as much detail as possible, which I greatly appreciated. One interesting note about Reel 2 is that the “[o]riginal footage has exposure irregularities”. That’s putting it mildly. This reel is so overexposed it looks like God keeps trying to break into the shot. The overexposure is so distracting I didn’t even notice that one of the people visiting the Calloway’s in this reel is Lena Horne!
  • Reel 4 has the most going for it because it’s in color! This one features Cab and his Orchestra traveling and performing in such countries as Uruguay and Argentina. It’s all pleasant to look at, but we don’t stay on anything long enough to get a clear snapshot of time and place. Ah well.
  • Based on the Smithsonian descriptions, the three reels currently unavailable for online viewing include footage from Calloway’s travels to Jamaica, Haiti, Brazil, and Puerto Rico.

Legacy

  • Shortly after these home movies were filmed, Cab Calloway and his band split up following financial difficulties exacerbated by Cab’s gambling. Calloway continued performing on stage and TV, and even managed one more NFR movie with his appearance in “The Blues Brothers”. Cab Calloway died in 1994 at age 86.
  • At some point the “Cab Calloway Home Movies” were gifted to the Smithsonian by Cab’s youngest daughter, Cabella Calloway Langsam, along with several of Cab’s personal belongings. New prints of “Cab Calloway Home Movies” were made in 2016 from the original 16 mm prints, and the footage made the NFR six years later.

Listen to This: Among Cab Calloway’s posthumous achievements are two honorary Grammys, induction into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, and the 2018 inclusion of “Minnie the Moocher” on the National Recording Registry. An essay by author and journalist Herb Boyd is a rundown of the song and Calloway’s contribution to pop culture.

#754) Early Abstractions #1-5, 7, 10 (1939-1956 or 1946-1957)

#754) Early Abstractions #1-5, 7, 10 (1939-1956 or 1946-1957)

OR “The Shape of Things to Come”

Directed by Harry Smith

Class of 2006

The Plot: How the hell do I describe “Early Abstractions”? Created by the Beat generation’s resident jack-of-all-trades Harry Smith, “Early Abstractions” is a seven-part collision of art, film, shapes, and music. Don’t try to figure it out, just let the images wash over you and go with it.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives a rundown of Harry Smith’s many achievements, and calls the films “a lovely, ever-moving collage of abstraction, color and imagery.”

But Does It Really?: We’ve covered a lot of autodidactic avant-garde filmmakers on this list, but even in that unique group Harry Smith stands out. Although his compilation of American folk music is his greatest legacy (more on that later), Smith’s film work is also worthy of recognition, and “Early Abstractions” fits the bill. As for the films themselves, it’s hard to critique them. Each of the “Early Abstractions” is a free-flowing work in progress that was never meant to be categorized or analyzed, certainly not by the likes of me. My takeaway from them is the experience of watching an artist’s evolution as he figures out what his “voice” is, with the films becoming more complex and polished as they go. “Early Abstractions” won’t suit everyone’s tastes, but they represent yet another creative voice in the experimental art movement of the 20th century.

Everybody Gets One: Born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Seattle, Washington area, Harry Everett Smith developed two major hobbies at an early age: collecting records and painting. As an adult, Smith moved to San Francisco, where he joined the experimental film scene and amassed as many as 20,000 records (by his estimation) including folk, blues, gospel, and the traditional music of practically every country and region in the world. After moving to New York and running out of money, Smith tried to sell his record collection to Folkways Records, who instead countered with a proposal for Smith to create a folk music compilation album. The result, 1952’s “Anthology of American Folk Music”, chronicled the genre’s more obscure entries from the 1920s and 1930s and has maintained a legacy of its own (see “Listen to This”). Very little is known about the creation of Smith’s “Early Abstractions” series as he kept no record of their production (the 1939-1956 timeline is a generous estimation). Each film in the “Abstractions” series was initially longer (anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes each) and subsequently cut down by Smith himself to synchronize with a selected piece of music that varied from showing to showing. The films didn’t receive their official titles until some point in the 1950s or early 1960s when the Film-Makers’ Cooperative started distributing prints. Smith had of history of selling, destroying, or misplacing his films, and numbers 6, 8, and 9 of the “Early Abstractions” series are presumed to no longer exist.

This section will alternate between Other notes and Things I Thought I Saw During “Early Abstractions” (or TITISDEA for short)

  • No. 1: A Strange Dream (1939-1947, or 1946-1948) is, in Smith’s words, “the history of the geologic period reduced to orgasm length.” I feel like I just learned a lot about Harry Smith in that one sentence. “No. 1” utilizes one of Smith’s early go-to forms of animation: painting directly onto 35 mm film.
  • TITISDEA1: Red blood cells, a melted popsicle, a chicken embryo, coffee mug stains.
  • No. 2: Message From the Sun (1940-1942 or 1946-1948): According to Smith, this film “takes place either inside the sun or in…Switzerland.” This time, Harry uses stickers from 3-ring binder paper as a makeshift stencil, with Vaseline and paint to color the frames.
  • TITISDEA2: Film leader, a pie chart, eggs (very pricey these days), the NBC logo from the late ‘70s, Pac-Man, and OSHA’s hazardous materials classification.
  • No. 3: Interwoven (1942-1947 or 1947-1949): Harry’s coloring of choice this time is batik, a dying technique more commonly used for fabric. That would explain why the animation seemed a little more “textured” than the first two. On a related note, Harry Smith enjoyed collecting Seminole patchwork, whose distinctive rickrack pattern appears in many of these films.
  • TITISDEA3: A hashtag, SMPTE color bars, Mondrian’s “Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow”, an argyle sweater, the Union Jack (or possibly the Confederate flag), a rotary phone.
  • No. 4: Fast Track aka Manteca (1947 or 1949-1950) Smith starts experimenting with filming images as opposed to just painting them. We start with footage of Smith’s painting Manteca, inspired by the Dizzy Gillespie song, which each brushstroke representing a note. This is followed by a few minutes of light patterns being superimposed over each other.
  • Side note: The song “Manteca” is taken from the Spanish word meaning “lard” and an Afro-Cuban euphemism for heroin. It is not, as I had hoped, named after the California city whose water slides I visited every summer in my childhood.
  • TITISDEA4: Headlights, fluorescent lights, constellations, a Saul Bass opening credits sequence (“Man with the Golden Arm”, maybe?)
  • No. 5: Circular Tensions (Homage to Oskar Fischinger) (1949-1950) was intended as a “sequel” to “No. 4”, which explains why I had a hard time figuring out where 4 ends and 5 begins. As for Oskar Fischinger, his film “Motion Painting No. 1” had been made a few years earlier, and you can see the influence it had on “No. 5”, with its emphasis on simple shapes and patterns.
  • TITISDEA5: Hula hoops, a CBS special presentation, and – oh no I’m being hypnotized!
  • No. 7: Color Study (1950-1952): Smith moves on to optical printing with what he calls “Pythagoreanism in four movements”. That’s a fancy way of saying there are a lot of shapes, with a relentless avalanche of squares, circles, triangles, etc.
  • TITISDEA7: Mainly all those gosh darn shapes; too many to fully make out what was going on. This one may have defeated me.
  • No. 10: Mirror Animations (1956-1957): The biggest leap in terms of Smith’s artistic evolution, “No. 10” is a photo collage with depictions of Buddhism and the Kabballah. After six films of shapes and colors, it’s a relief to see something that, while still abstract in concept, features more concrete visuals. I wouldn’t be surprised if Frank Mouris was inspired by this to make “Frank Film”.
  • TITISDEA10: Less abstract in terms of visuals, though I think I saw the electronic game Simon.

Legacy

  • Harry Smith made 10 more “Abstractions” between 1956 and 1981, including one that was intended as a feature adaptation of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. Smith continued pursuing his other interests over the years, recording and collecting music, studying the occult, and becoming a bishop in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. Harry Smith died in 1991 at age 68 from a bleeding ulcer. In addition to the NFR induction of “Early Abstractions”, Smith has been inducted into the National Recording Registry, and in 2023 achieved canonized sainthood by the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. I’ve covered many accomplished artists on this blog, but this is my first time covering a saint.

Listen to This: Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music” was added to the National Recording Registry in 2005. The NRR write-up gives a summary of the album and its “seminal role in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s.” An essay by music researcher Ian Nagoski is a detailed overview the album and Harry Smith, who I guess I should have been calling St. Harry this whole time.

#753) Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther (1939)

#753) Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther (1939)

OR “Minnesota Nice: The Motion Picture”

Directed by Esther & Dr. Raymond Dowidat

Class of 2001

The Plot: The sleepy town of Cologne, Minnesota gets the artistic amateur film treatment in “Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther”. The Ray and Esther in question are Dr. Raymond Dowidat, a general practitioner, and his wife Esther. The couple have lived in Cologne for two years and document the summer of 1939 with their 16 mm camera. With Esther’s journal entries as a framing device, “Cologne” is a snapshot of what this small town has to offer, with seemingly endless farmland, the town’s feed mill, and the “good-natured German or Hollanders” that comprise Cologne’s population of 350.

Why It Matters: The NFR praises this amateur film for exhibiting “a cinematic sophistication and artistry not usually found in home movies”. An essay by Scott Simmon is an equally brief overview of the movie.

But Does It Really?: While not the first amateur film on the NFR that attempts a narrative, “Cologne” is among the first, marking the start of a recurring trend in the Registry’s 2000s inductees. In a brief 14 minutes, “Cologne” paints quite the picture of small-town Americana, along with commentary that evokes more questions than answers. I always air on the side of giving a pass to any amateur filmmakers on the list, and while I don’t strongly advocate for “Cologne” being in the NFR, I don’t begrudge its induction, so another pass it is.

Everybody Gets One: Like every other amateur filmmaker on this list, any scraps of biographical information about Ray and Esther Dowidat are few and far between. We know that Ray and Esther married in 1937 in Iowa, and later that year moved to Cologne, Minnesota following Ray’s completion of his medical internship. They had three children, the third being born shortly before Ray and Esther started filming “Cologne”. Assuming the Dowidat kids were all born in wedlock, that would mean Esther spent the majority of her two years in Cologne pregnant.

Other notes

  • Located roughly 30 miles southwest of Minneapolis, Cologne was incorporated in 1881 with a population of 100 and was named after the fourth most populous city in Germany (a large portion of the Midwest is of German heritage). Prior to the filming of “Cologne”, the biggest event in town seems to have been when Charles August Lindbergh (father of the famous aviator) visited in 1918 while campaigning for Governor. Other than that, the fact that “Cologne” is on the National Film Registry seems to be the town’s biggest selling point.
  • Esther’s diary entries are a nice touch, giving the film a cohesive throughline and elevating it above standard home movies. As best I can tell, Esther filmed these diary interstitials shortly after giving birth to her third child John.
  • One segment in June is a visit to the town’s feed mill at Cologne Milling Inc. The mill was owned and operated by the Guettler family, who were prominent in Cologne’s history; their family home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Representing the Guettler family in this film are Hans, Bill, and “The Old Man” (the film doesn’t specify how they are related to each other or what the Old Man’s actual name is, and my research findings were inconclusive). The mill, now known as Cologne Milling Co., is still in operation.
  • Most essays I have read about “Cologne” comment on the seemingly condescending point of view Ray and Esther have of Cologne and its people. The first such example is how they describe Cologne being “at one time an important little railroad town. Now—”, followed by a shot of a train speeding past the city without stopping. And now that I think about it, the “good-natured German or Hollanders” comment does seem a little backhanded. It’s like this film is the Dowidat’s ethnographic study of some far-off civilization.
  • August brings us the volunteer fireman’s picnic and parade, with volunteer firefighters from nearby towns lending a helping hand. That would explain why this parade is so big; I think there’s more people in the parade than there are living in Cologne.
  • Another prominent citizen of Cologne featured here is Henry Mohrbacher. In addition to being descended from one of Cologne’s founder, Henry owns the town saloon. We also see him making his famous turtle soup, and –Oh god he’s skinning a turtle on camera! Why is there so much graphic animal cruelty on this list? Make it stop!
  • More potential disdain for Cologne is on display when Esther writes about how the local saloons “play a very prominent part in the social life of the community”. She follows this up with “In Cologne everybody drinks beer”, followed by a shot of two old men getting into a seemingly good natured barfight. The final entry in which the Dowdiats announce their departure from Cologne has also raised some eyebrows, with Esther stating that she is leaving the town with “[s]ome regrets, many memories – pleasant and bitter”. Ooh, spill the tea, Esther!
  • The date of Esther’s final journal entry is noteworthy in hindsight because September 1st, 1939 was the day Germany invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II. Although America wouldn’t enter the war for another two years, “Cologne” offers one of the final glimpses of a country fully removed from the war in Europe.

Legacy

  • The Dowidats moved to Minneapolis in 1939, and outside of Ray’s service in the Army during WWII and his work at a VA hospital in Saginaw, Michigan, not a lot is known about Ray or Esther after filming “Cologne”. Ray and Esther’s daughter Adele Johnson discovered “Cologne” in Esther’s attic and donated it to the Minnesota Historical Society in 1989. At some point around 1999, the MHS received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to have “Cologne” preserved, which no doubt caught the attention of the National Film Preservation Board, and the rest is history.
  • As of the 2020 census, Cologne, Minnesota has a population of over 2,000. I don’t know how many of those 2000 are German, but 95% of the population is White (which is – believe it or not – down from 97% in a previous census).

#752) Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (c. 1934 – c. 1950)

#752) Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (c. 1934 – c. 1950)

OR “The Tap Dance Kids”

Filmed by Fayard, Harold, Ulysses, and Viola Nicholas and Lorenzo Hill

Class of 2011

This is another one of my placeholder posts. The “Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies” are currently unavailable online in their entirety, but a few minutes appear in two different TV specials about the Nicholas Brothers: the 1992 British documentary “The Nicholas Brothers: We Sing and We Dance”,  and the 1999 “Biography” episode “The Nicholas Brothers: Flying High”. Thanks to Ken Scheck for bringing these to my attention.

The Plot: Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Fayard and Harold Nicholas appeared on stage and screen as The Nicholas Brothers, performing their unique “flash dance” combing precision tap with outstanding acrobatics. The first two decades of their careers are chronicled in a series of home movies filmed by the brothers, as well as their parents Ulysses and Viola Nicholas. We get a peek into the Nicholas Brothers’ beginnings at New York’s famous Cotton Club, their trips to Hollywood, their extensive international touring, and personal glimpses of the expanding Nicholas family, including a pre-fame Dorothy Dandridge!

Why It Matters: The NFR calls these home movies “extraordinary” because they “capture a golden age of show business” as well as “document the middle-class African-American life of that era”. We also get an all-encompassing essay from Tony Nicholas (Fayard’s son) and Academy Film Archive expert Luisa F. Ribeiro.

But Does It Really?: I’ve been trying to track down this film for years, and although I’ve only been able to view a few minutes of these home movies, I loved every second of it. While we’ve covered a lot of show business for this blog, very little (if any) behind the scenes footage has been inducted. I get that the NFR doesn’t want to turn too meta, but this backstage glimpse of a bygone showbiz era was quite a treat. My only issue is that I haven’t been able to see all of it yet. A yes for the “Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies” on the NFR, an encapsulation of time, place, family, and remarkable talent.

Everybody Gets One: Ulysses and Viola Nicholas were both musicians at various vaudeville houses in the 1920s; Ulysses on drums, Viola on piano. Their first son Fayard was born in 1914, followed by daughter Dorothy in 1920 and second son Harold in 1921. Fayard would watch all the acts their parents performed for, learning how to imitate each act’s dancing and singing, teaching all of this to his siblings. The three Nicholas children started performing in 1931 in Philadelphia as “The Nicholas Kids”, though Dorothy left the act shortly thereafter. An offer for the newly renamed “Nicholas Brothers” act with the Cotton Club in 1932 saw the family move to New York, and by 1934 the act was successful enough that the family could afford a state of the art 16 mm camera to record home movies with. While Viola and the children filmed their share of these home movies (Ulysses died in 1935), most of this footage was filmed by Lorenzo Hill, the Nicholas family’s longtime friend and chauffeur.

Other notes

  • Praise be for the two documentaries featuring snippets of these home movies. It was a rare experience to be able to watch an NFR film and my research on it simultaneously. Both documentaries have the good fortune of interviewing Fayard and Harold, and the two of them are still enthusiastic and energetic in their later years, at one point even recreating one of their old routines! On hand for “We Sing and We Dance” are additional interviews with Gregory & Maurice Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Stanley Burrell, aka MC Hammer. Incidentally, both brothers are impressed by Hammer’s dance moves (even though Fayard accidentally calls him “JC Hammer”). The “Biography” episode was especially enjoyable for me because I watched that show a lot growing up. There’s something about having your life story narrated by Peter Graves that just feels right. Of the two, the “Biography” episode has slightly more of the home movie footage, but both only include a few fleeting moments of each sequence.
  • I’ll be covering the available footage in as close to chronological order as I can. By 1934, the Nicholas Brothers had been performing at the Cotton Club for two years, with the occasional trip out to Hollywood to film dance routines for such films as “Kid Millions” (also Harold is in “The Emperor Jones”; how did I miss that?) The Cotton Club footage is the only known footage inside the famous nightclub, notorious at the time for its segregation: Black performers for a Whites-only audience (the Nicholas Brothers were the only act allowed to mingle with the audience after a performance). The Nicholas’ Cotton Club footage is primarily taken from the wings, though someone was able to discreetly film a rehearsal from the house. Among the Cotton Club performers making an appearance here is Cab Calloway, whose own home movies have also found their way onto the NFR. Man, Calloway’s got more NFR titles than Christopher Nolan.
  • One of my favorite moments was the Nicholas Brothers dancing with Fred Astaire on the RKO backlot. Astaire was filming “Top Hat” at the time, and often praised the brothers’ dancing abilities in interviews, calling them his heroes.
  • My main takeaway from this footage is how practically every shot of Fayard and Harold offstage is them mugging for the camera or showing off a new dance move. Even in the interviews conducted for the later documentaries they always seem to be “on”. It makes sense, these two were born into show-business, they know no other life; if there’s a camera, it’s showtime. Hopefully, they were much more reserved when the camera was off.
  • Another highlight is the brothers performing on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hart musical “Babes in Arms”. This is that “let’s paint the barn and put on a show” musical that’s been lampooned to death over the decades. “Babes in Arms” was subsequently made into a film with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, though the script was completely rewritten, most of the score was thrown out, and…oh God they added a blackface number. Moving on…
  • In 1939, the Nicholas Brothers did a South American tour, and there is footage of the brothers performing with Carmen Miranda. I don’t know if this led to them appearing with Miranda in “Down Argentine Way”, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
  • Yes, that is a young Dorothy Dandridge in these home movies. Dandridge met Harold while the two were working at the Cotton Club in 1938 (Dorothy was part of the Dandridge Sisters singing trio), and the two were married from 1942 to 1951. Harold admitted years later that he was not the greatest husband to Dandridge, spending more time away from home playing golf, which is also documented in these home movies.
  • The last of the footage appears to be from one of the Nicholas Brothers’ many European trips in the late 1940s/early 1950s, most likely their trip to London in 1948 and a royal command performance for King George VI. Was he still Colin Firth in 1948 or had he already become Jared Harris?
  • Watching these two documentaries meant getting to revisit the brothers’ incredible work in “Down Argentine Way” (which I called “one of [that] movie’s few saving graces”) and “Stormy Weather” (“the brothers do not disappoint”). I also got to watch their dance numbers in some of their other movies, and is it me or does that “Be a Clown” song from “The Pirate” sound familiar?
  • According to the NFR essay there’s a lot of the “Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies” that I haven’t seen. Highlights include: a family trip to the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair, a tribute to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson at the Cotton Club, Fayard and Harold’s amateur film “Mutiny on Sugar Hill”, a star-studded USO tour in 1939, and Fayard’s stint in the army during WWII.

Legacy

  • Shortly after the period covered by these home movies, the Nicholas Brothers began their solo careers as Fayard returned to the United States and Harold remained in France. The two would reunite professionally upon Harold’s return to the states in the 1960s, but by that point their careers had waned, and in the wake of the Civil Rights movement their act was perceived as old-fashioned (and as they got older the Nicholas Brothers couldn’t perform as many of their more acrobatic moves as they used to). Thankfully, both brothers lived long enough to see their work get rediscovered and celebrated, with Fayard winning a Tony Award for his choreography of “Black and Blue” in 1989, and both brothers receiving the Kennedy Center Honor in 1991. Harold died in 2000 at age 79, Fayard six years later at age 91.
  • After Fayard’s death, his son Tony and daughter-in-law Vanita donated his home movie collection to the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles. While the “Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies” have yet to appear online in full, snippets can be found in other documentaries, and the footage has been screened on occasion at the Academy Museum, with Tony Nicholas on hand for at least one screening to provide commentary.