St. Louis Blues (1929)

16m
Running Time

September 8, 1929
Release Date

St. Louis Blues (1929)

16m
Running Time

September 8, 1929
Release Date

External Links & Social Media
Network & Production Companies
RKO Radio Pictures
Watch St. Louis Blues Trailer

Plot.

In this all-black cast short, legendary blues singer Bessie Smith finds her gambler lover Jimmy messin' with a pretty, younger woman; he leaves and she sings the blues, with chorus and dancers.

Where to Watch.

Cohen Media Amazon ChannelSubs

Currently St. Louis Blues is available for streaming online, rent, buy or watch for free on: Cohen Media Amazon Channel

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Details.

Release Date
September 8, 1929

Status
Released

Running Time
16m

Genres

Last updated:

This Movie Is About.

short

Wiki.

St. Louis Blues is a 1929 American two-reel short film starring Bessie Smith. Directed by Dudley Murphy, it is the only known film featuring Bessie Smith, and the soundtrack is her only recording not controlled by Columbia Records. An early sound film, it features an entirely African American cast, with Smith in the role of a woman left alone by her roving lover; in a speakeasy during the Prohibition era, the woman sings the W. C. Handy standard "St. Louis Blues".

Bessie Smith's recording of Handy's song was a hit in 1925, and Handy himself asked Bessie Smith to appear in the film. Handy co-authored the film and served as its musical director. The film is a dramatization of the song, concerning a woman left alone by her roving man. It features a band that includes James P. Johnson on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, Bernard Addison on guitar and banjo, as well as the Hall Johnson Choir.

St. Louis Blues was filmed in June 1929 in Astoria, Queens. The film was rumored for a long time to have been banned as demeaning and to have become lost. Neither rumor was true, but when a print was discovered in Mexico in the 1940s, the event was treated as a significant development, even though copies had, in fact, been available elsewhere.

In 2006, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

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