The ebullient and momentous film Stormy Weather, produced by 20th Century Fox in 1943, is an integrated musical which gives a romanticized view of African American life. The characters are very one dimensional and the plot serves very little importance as film arrays the talent of Black musicians and dancers. The “Golden Age of Hollywood” was an era of glitz and exuberance in film history, where films gave a positive insight of America during the peak of The Great Depression. By 1936 the number of screens would be shaved by a third. . . The number of weekly filmgoers would also decline permanently, slashed by radio . . . Still, never was escapist entertainment needed more than during the Depression. Hollywood rose to the occasion (Giddins).
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This is certainly shown displayed when Selina (the famous singer) doesn’t recognize Bill Robinson (famous dancer) while he holds the waiter position at a popular bar she visits in Memphis. Even background dancers weren’t so high on the Black hierarchy as Cab Calloway tells Selina background dancers “aint worth nothing but a nickel a dozen”. Bill Robinson is given a role in Calloway’s production and promised to be “at the top”. Well he’s given the roll of a drum banger on the top of a tree onstage far from the audience’s visibility. Of course like most storylines in this era, he debuts his talent and works his way to the top. When Bill travels to Chicago to participate in Cab’s play the less advanced, poor southern Black America leads into the wealthy, high class, urban scene of northern Black America: Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers perform dressed in white tie and tails. Instead of careless shuffling and jiving, the “improved” higher class black man is a competent adult who makes profit from his talent. Messrs. Robinson, Wilson, Miller and Lyles express the then previously racist view of blacks: uneducated, ignorant, yet holding an important working role in white society. Lena Horne, Katherine Dunham, and Messrs. Calloway and Nicholas exhibit the new Hollywood racist view of African Americans post Forties: successful polished, wealthy performers. These blacks are literate, advanced, don’t pose as a direct threat, but their obvious wealth exceeds that of most white Americans of the Forties, and typically started white
This is certainly shown displayed when Selina (the famous singer) doesn’t recognize Bill Robinson (famous dancer) while he holds the waiter position at a popular bar she visits in Memphis. Even background dancers weren’t so high on the Black hierarchy as Cab Calloway tells Selina background dancers “aint worth nothing but a nickel a dozen”. Bill Robinson is given a role in Calloway’s production and promised to be “at the top”. Well he’s given the roll of a drum banger on the top of a tree onstage far from the audience’s visibility. Of course like most storylines in this era, he debuts his talent and works his way to the top. When Bill travels to Chicago to participate in Cab’s play the less advanced, poor southern Black America leads into the wealthy, high class, urban scene of northern Black America: Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers perform dressed in white tie and tails. Instead of careless shuffling and jiving, the “improved” higher class black man is a competent adult who makes profit from his talent. Messrs. Robinson, Wilson, Miller and Lyles express the then previously racist view of blacks: uneducated, ignorant, yet holding an important working role in white society. Lena Horne, Katherine Dunham, and Messrs. Calloway and Nicholas exhibit the new Hollywood racist view of African Americans post Forties: successful polished, wealthy performers. These blacks are literate, advanced, don’t pose as a direct threat, but their obvious wealth exceeds that of most white Americans of the Forties, and typically started white