You enter a short film with a title like this with trepidation to say the least and it’s undeniable that the ghost of the minstrel show can’t help but be conjured in your mind. But, in this case at least, the problematic elements of a short film like this take a back seat to the awe-inspiring skill of the performers. This short is just around ten minutes long and it features performances from several African-American vaudeville act. The singers, of which there are a couple, are pretty forgettable, but most of the other performances are genuinely brilliant. In particular, the tap-dancing Nicholas Brothers and an acrobatic act called The 3 Whippets are breathtaking. And the show closes with Adelaide Hall, who does a fairly forgettable song, but then her backing band, The Five Racketeers kind of shoos her offstage and break into a barn-burning rendition of Tiger Rag. Yes, this film does still have a real whiff of racism about it; even when black performers were given chances like this, there was an air of condescension in the white audiences and the white filmmakers. And sometimes that can be overpowering. Here though, the performers’ amazing talents can’t be suppressed and, decades later, their vibrant intensity shines through to create a work of truly magnificent entertainment. 4 stars.
tl;dr – ten-minute short film is problematic, but it also boasts some truly incredible, breath-taking talent that has otherwise been lost to history. 4 stars.