St. Louis Blues
Director: Dudley Murphy
Year: 1929
Rating: 7.0
I am working my way through the Ken Burns 10-part jazz documentary from a
few years back and this film is mentioned in regards to Bessie Smith. Smith
was considered the greatest blues and jazz singer of her generation with
her songs of woe and destitution that could make a cat cry. She died way
too young in 1937 at the age of 43 in a car accident. This all-Black short
(15 mins) is the only known film of Bessie Smith. She sings one song - the
W.C. Handy song of the same name as the title which Bessie had a hit with
in 1925. The short presents a little drama which is kind of interesting -
it opens on a crap game being played in what could be a cat house with women
wandering or lolling around the periphery. One high roller takes his winnings
and a young woman to Bessie's room where they begin a fandango. Bessie shows
up - she was not a small woman - and she beats up the woman, then the janitor
and begs the man to stay. Instead he whacks her and leaves - and she begins
to moan the blues - initially acapella but that then transitions to a black
nightclub (or this being 1929 a speakeasy) with a band. It is up on youtube.
Part of our musical heritage. Without Bessie Smith there may have been no
Billie Holiday and without Billie Holiday the world would be a sadder place
to be.