Juke Joint | |
---|---|
Directed by | Spencer Williams |
Written by | True T. Thompson |
Produced by | Alfred N. Sack Bert Goldberg Inez Newell |
Starring | Spencer Williams July Jones Inez Newell |
Cinematography | George Sanderson |
Music by | Red Calhoun |
Distributed by | Sack Amusement Enterprises |
Release date |
|
Running time | 69 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Juke Joint is a 1947 race film directed by and starring Spencer Williams and produced and released by Sack Amusement Enterprises. The film was considered lost until being rediscovered.
Bad News Johnson, a con artist from Memphis, Tennessee, arrives in Dallas, Texas accompanied by his dim sidekick July Jones with only twenty-five cents between them. Johnson is constantly exasperated at Jones’ deficient perspicacity, and at one point he comments that Jones is so dense that he probably thinks "Veronica Lake is some kind of summer resort." The duo arrange to become boarders at the home of Louella "Mama Lou" Holiday, who is fooled into believing that Johnson is an acting teacher named Whitney Vanderbilt; Jones takes the alias of Cornbread Green. Mrs. Holiday agrees to give the men free room and board if they will provide poise lessons to her daughter, an aspiring beauty queen named Honey Dew. The lessons pay off and Honey Dew wins the beauty contest, but problems arise when Mrs. Holiday’s husband, Papa Sam, decides to hold a party for the new beauty queen at a disreputable juke joint. [1]
Juke Joint was the last in a series of films directed by Spencer Williams, an African American actor and writer, for production by Sack Amusement Enterprises, a white-owned Dallas-based company that distributed all-black race films to segregated theaters across the United States. Williams was among the few African Americans to direct films during the 1940s. [2]
The juke joint scenes were filmed on location at the Rose Room in Dallas and Don’s Keyhole in San Antonio, Texas, and included musical numbers featuring band leader Red Calhoun. [3]
Following the release of Juke Joint, Williams disappeared from the entertainment industry. He returned to prominence in 1951 when he was cast as Andrew H. “Andy” Brown in the television version of the radio comedy Amos 'n Andy , which ran on CBS from 1951 to 1953. He made one final film appearance in a small role in the 1962 Italian horror production L'Orribile Segreto del Dottor Hitchcock. [4]
Juke Joint was considered a lost film for many years, until a print was located in 1983 in a warehouse in Tyler, Texas. [3]
The Blood of Jesus is a 1941 American independent fantasy drama race film written, directed by and starring Spencer Williams. The plot concerns a Baptist woman who, after being accidentally shot by her atheist husband, is sent to a crossroads, where Satan tries to lead her astray.
Spencer Williams was an American actor and filmmaker. He portrayed Andy on TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show and directed films including the 1941 race film The Blood of Jesus. Williams was a pioneering African-American film producer and director.
The Sugarland Express is a 1974 American crime drama film directed by Steven Spielberg in his theatrical film directing debut, following the television film Duel (1971). The film follows a woman and her husband as they take a police officer hostage and flee across Texas while they try to get to their child before he is placed in foster care. The event partially took place and the film was partially shot in Sugar Land, Texas. Other scenes were filmed in San Antonio, Live Oak, Floresville, Pleasanton, Converse and Del Rio, Texas.
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Eugene Barton Evans was an American actor who appeared in numerous television series, television films, and feature films between 1947 and 1989.
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That's Black Entertainment is a 1989 documentary film starring African-American performers and featuring clips from black films from 1929–1957, narrated and directed by William Greaves. The clips are from the Black Cinema Collection of the Southwest Film/Video Archives at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. It is 60 minutes long and was distributed by Video Communications of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. is a 1946 race film directed by Spencer Williams and produced and distributed by Sack Amusement Enterprises.
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The Big Show is a 1936 American Western musical film directed by Mack V. Wright and starring Gene Autry, Kay Hughes, and Smiley Burnette. Written by Dorrell and Stuart E. McGowan, the film is about a singing cowboy who confuses two girls by being himself and his own stunt double at the Texas Centennial in Dallas. Roy Rogers appears in the film as one of the Sons of the Pioneers.
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The Bagdad Supper Club was a theater and entertainment venue located on north side of what then was U.S. Route 80, but now is Texas State Highway 180, east of Grand Prairie, Texas, at the corner of Bagdad Road and Main Street. It opened Thanksgiving Day 1928, eleven months before the Great Crash of 1929. It was an opulent palatial facility that offered dining, dancing, and music. The venue was featured in the 1947 comedy Juke Joint, starring Spencer Williams. J. Wiley Day was the inaugural managing director. The club was constructed by the Bagdad Enterprises, Inc., a Texas corporation, controlled by Eastern capital. The corporation was a subsidiary of a large Eastern company that confined itself to various theatrical lines. The architect was W. Scott Dunne (1886–1937), a well-known designer of theaters in Texas.
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Alfred N. Sack was an American businessperson, newspaper publisher and the proprietor of film distribution, production, and the theater-owning business Sack Amusements in the United States.. He collaborated with Spencer Williams to make films with Black casts. Sack Amusement Enterprises was the leading distributor of this type of film between 1920 and 1950.