St. Louis Blues (film)
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A number of short and feature films have been entitled St. Louis Blues.
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[edit] 1929 film
St. Louis Blues is a 1929 two-reel short movie starring Bessie Smith. The early sound film features Smith in an African-American speakeasy of the prohibition era singing the W. C. Handy standard, "St. Louis Blues". Directed by Dudley Murphy, it is the only known film of Bessie Smith, and the soundtrack is her only recording not controlled by Columbia Records.
Bessie Smith had a hit on the song in 1925 and Handy himself asked Bessie Smith to appear in the movie. Handy co-authored the film and was the musical director. The film was a dramatization of the song, a woman left alone by her roving man. It features a band that included James P. Johnson on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, as well as the Hall Johnson Choir with some thrilling harmonies at the end.
The film has an all African-American cast. Bessie Smith co-stars with the dancer and actor Jimmy Mordecai as the boyfriend and Isabel Washington Powell as the other woman.
It was filmed in June of 1929 in Astoria, Queens. The film is about 16 minutes long.
In 2006, this version was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
[edit] 1939 film
In 1939, Raoul Walsh directed St. Louis Blues, a musical, set on a Mississippi River showboat. Although the plot was not related to the song, the "St. Louis Blues" was sung as one of the numbers. Artists included jazz singer Maxine Sullivan and composer/singer/actor Hoagy Carmichael. The film starred Dorothy Lamour, Lloyd Nolan, Tito Guízar as Jerome Cowan.
Lamour sang "I Go for That"[1] by Matt Malneck, Jr., and Frank Loesser[2] in the film, and had a hit recording with it.
[edit] 1941 short
In 1941, Alvino Rey and his orchestra, featuring the King Sisters, presented a three-minute interpretation of the "St. Louis Blues". See soundie.
[edit] 1958 feature film
In 1958, the film St. Louis Blues was broadly based on Handy's life. It starred jazz and blues greats Nat "King" Cole, Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, and Barney Bigard, as well as gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and actress Ruby Dee. The film's soundtrack used over ten of Handy's songs including the title song.
