Jumping the Color Line

Susie Trenka

Description

From the first synchronized sound films of the late 1920s through the end of World War II, African American music and dance styles were ubiquitous in films. Black performers, however, were marginalized, mostly limited to appearing in "specialty acts" and various types of short films, whereas stardom was reserved for Whites. Jumping the Color Line discusses vernacular jazz dance in film as a focal point of American race relations. Looking at intersections of race, gender, and class, the book examines how the racialized and gendered body in film performs, challenges, and negotiates identities and stereotypes. Arguing for the transformative and subversive potential of jazz dance performance onscreen, the six chapters address a variety of films and performers, including many that have received little attention to date. Topics include Hollywood's first Black female star (Nina Mae McKinney), male tap dance "class acts" in Black-cast short films of the early 1930s, the film career of Black tap soloist Jeni LeGon, the role of dance in the Soundies jukebox shorts of the 1940s, cinematic images of the Lindy hop, and a series of teen films from the early 1940s that appealed primarily to young White fans of swing culture. With a majority of examples taken from marginal film forms, such as shorts and B movies, the book highlights their role in disseminating alternative images of racial and gender identities as embodied by dancers – images that were at least partly at odds with those typically found in major Hollywood productions.

Contents A Note on "Black" and "White" Introduction - Jazz Dance on the Silver Screen: Race, Gender, Genre Chapter 1 - Doomed Divas: Black Dancing Women in Early Sound Film Chapter 2 - Kids and Class Acts: Male Dancers in Black-Cast Music Shorts Chapter 3 - Potential Pioneer: The Film Career of Black Tap Dancer Jeni LeGon Chapter 4 - Jumpin' at the Jukebox, Dancin' in the Street: Dance, Race, and Space in 1940s Soundies Chapter 5 - Harlem to Hollywood: Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and the Crossover Success of a Black Dance Chapter 6 - "A Savage Exhibition"? Swing and White Youth Culture in B Movies Conclusion - Dance History, the Swing Dance Revival, and Vintage Movies in the Digital Age Filmography / Bibliography / Index

Sujets

• Ethnic Relations
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• Contemporary dance
• Cinema of the United States
• General officer
• History of film
• Dance
• General
• Soundies
• Film
• Jazz
• Hollywood
• Race

Informations

• Publié par: John Libbey Publishing
• Date de parution: 02 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780861969784
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Jumping the Color Line

Jumping the Color Line: Vernacular Jazz Dance in American Film, 1929–1945

SUSIE TRENKA

Jumping the Color Line: Vernacular Jazz Dance in American Fi lm, 1929–1945

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

JumpingtheColorLine: VernacularJazzDanceinAmericanFilm,1929–1945

Trenka, Susie

A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

PaperbackISBN:0861967438 Ebooks: EPUB: 0 86196 975 3 EPDF: 0 86196 978 4

Cover image:Jeni LeGon and Bill Robinson, publicity still forHooray for Love(1935). Credit:EverettCollection.

Published by John Libbey Publishing Ltd,205 Crescent Road, New Barnet, Herts EN4 8SB, United Kingdom email: [e-mail]; web site: www.johnlibbey.com

Distributed Worldwide by Indiana University Press, Herman BWells Library—350, 1320 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. www.iupress.indiana.edu

© 2021 Copyright John Libbey Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Unauthorised duplication contravenes applicable laws.

PrintedandboundintheUSA.

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Contents

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments A Note on “Black” and “White”

IntroductionJazz Dance on the Silver Screen: Race, Gender, Genre The Conspicuous Absence of the Black Dancing Woman The Film Musical and Resistance on the Margins Summary

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Doomed Divas: Black Dancing Women in Early Sound Film Hallelujahand the Denial of Agency and Mobility to Black Women Ambiguous Images of Black Modernity One of a Kind: NonNarrative Dance Performances by Black Women

Kids and Class Acts: Male Dancers in BlackCast Music Shorts Fantasies of Achievement and Abundance Creative Composer and Exuberant Entertainer: The Short Films of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway Hot and Classy: BlackCast Shorts in the Trade Press

Potential Pioneer: The Film Career of Black Tap Dancer Jeni LeGon A Promising Start: Mid1930s Broken Promises: Late 1930s Uncredited: 1940s Offscreen Successes and Struggles: 1950s and Beyond “A Footnote in Hollywood History”: Late but Still Limited Recognition

vii ix

1 8 12 18

25

29 39

45

53 62

78 89

93 95 108 117 122

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Jumping the Color Line: Vernacular Jazz Dance in American Fi lm, 1929–1945

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Conclusion

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Jumpin’ at the Jukebox, Dancin’ in the Street: Dance, Race, and Space in 1940s Soundies Integrating Film Viewing in the Public Sphere Jukebox Swing Block Parties and Living Room Dances: Vernacular Aesthetics in Mundane Settings “You Do It Any Way You Will”: Soundies’ Black Women Black Stardom in a Liminal Medium

Harlem to Hollywood: Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers and the Crossover Success of a Black Dance Rewriting Rules, Shifting Perceptions From the Savoy to the Screen Star Turns inA Day at the Races Sidelined: The Forgotten Films Hellzapoppin’ Jitterbug Dancing in MockEducational Short Films

“A Savage Exhibition”? Swing and White Youth Culture in B Movies Swing, Youth Culture, and Racial (De)Segregation Swing Kids Go to Hollywood Hep to the Jive: The Jivin’ Jacks and Jills at Universal The Alternative Embodiments of Peggy Ryan and Donald O’Connor World War II and Traces of Racial Integration Youth Culture, the Vaudeville Aesthetic, and the Adolescent Audience Hollywood Swing as Marginal Mainstream

Dance History, the Swing Dance Revival, and Vintage Movies in the Digital Age

Filmography Bibliography Index of Names and Titles

129 132 135

140 147 153

157 158 162 165 175 179 186

199 201 204 206

217 225

228 239

243

255 261 269

Acknowledgments

he classic musicals from Hollywood’s golden age and the swing music of the 1930sprovided the soundtrack of my childhood, and I am immensely T grateful to my parents forintroducing me to whatthey simply called “old films” and “old jazz”. At the time, none of us could have predicted that I would one day aspire to be a swing dancer as well as a film historian.

Years later, as an amateur Lindy hopper, I still had no intention of turning my newfound passion into a research endeavor. It simply didn’t occur to me that I might try to personally meet and interview the “oldtimers” – that is, the swing and tap dancers who had been active as far back as the 1930s and who were still teaching and lecturing around theworld. Nevertheless, I have fondmemories of their presence at Herräng Dance Camp in Sweden and other events I attended in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and I am especially grateful to Lindy hoppers Frankie Manning and Norma Miller for sharing their stories. Much gratitude is also due to those dancers of the “revival” generation who did the work of researching the history, and who generously shared their extensive knowledge, as well as their film collections. Peter Loggins and Lennart Westerlund deserve a special mention here.

It was several more years and many film studies courses later that my various interests finally converged in my dissertation project, which the present book is based on. A very big thank yougoes tomy advisor, Margrit Tröhler, for supporting me in so many ways over the years (not least by helping to keep me employed in a variety of functions). The Department of Film Studies at the University of Zurich was much more than just an office, and it would not have felt like a second home without all my wonderful coworkers there – thank you to Adrian, Alice, Andrea, Daniel, Geesa,Henriette, Jan, Julia,Kristina, Marian, Mattia, Philipp, Seraina, Silvia, Simon, Tereza, Wolfgang, and everyone else at the department for sharing ideas, offices, and lunch hours, and for being the best team.

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Jumping the Color Line: Vernacular Jazz Dance in American Fi lm, 1929–1945

Bernd Hoffmann kindly agreed – more or less at the last minute – to act as coadvisor and to travel to Zurich for my dissertation’s defense, for which I am extremely grateful. Wolfgang Fuhrmann offered to take on the role of coexaminer, which made the experience considerably less stressful. And to Jörg Schweinitz I owe the contact to John Libbey, and thus, ultimately, the publication of this book. The opportunity to spend a year in New Orleans (and to travel for conferences and archivalresearch elsewhere in theStates) wascrucialto this project –and in unforeseen ways to my life overall. Joel Dinerstein at Tulane University and Bruce Raeburn, then the curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, were so kind as to provide me with an invitation, as well as access to Tulane’s facilities and archival holdings, and I will forever be grateful for their support. Huge thanks are also due to the Swiss National Science Foundation for their generous grant, which made this year away from my regular duties in Zurich possible. I am indebted to a number of scholars who were willing to meet with me and who offered muchneeded inspiration and encouragement along the way. I particularly thank Richard Dyer for our meeting in Weimar and Krin Gabbard for responding to my outoftheblue email and inviting me to lunch in New York. I also thank Andrea Kelley for sharing her excellent research on Soundies with me, including some material that remains unpublished to this day. Addi tional helpful feedback and ideas came from the conferences where I had an opportunity to present some of my work; thank you to all the participants and organizers – namely, Karen McNally and the European Association of Dance Historians in London, the Society of Cinema and Media Studies, and Mary Simonson at Colgate University. Whether during inperson visits or remotely, I have encountered nothing but the best service at archives and libraries; my gratitude for their friendly and competent help goes to the staff of the Hogan Jazz Archive and the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library, the Moving Image Research Center at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the HistoryMakers in Chicago. Big thanks also to the folks at Photofest and at the Everett Collection for their prompt and professional assistance with my image search. A very special thank you goes to my publisher, John Libbey, for taking on this project and for being almost endlessly patient with me. And to Adrian – for alwayspointing outwhensomething didn’t make sense, for proofreading(again and again), and for everything. viii

A Note on “Black” and “White”

n the United States, the recent wave of protests against police violence and racial injustice has rekindled a longstanding debate about the spelling of re I cently moved to capitalize “Black” in reference to people of African descent, 1 adjectives denoting race and skin color. Major style guides and news outlets which has long been a common practice in Black publications and within social justice organizations. Apart from concerns of empowerment and respect, the main argument for capitalization isthat the word isnot used toreferto skin color in a literal sense but to a socially constructed identity, and it should therefore be treated as a proper noun, not as a natural category. Since the capital “Black” is quickly becoming the new standard, and because every text inevitably reflects the historical context of its own creation, I have adopted it for this book.

“White”, by contrast, still remains lowercased in a lot of writing (though that is also beginningtochange).Tworeasons are typically given for this: one, thatthe capitalization of the word is common in White supremacist circles, and two, that there is less of a sense of a shared identity with respect to people of European descent. I have chosen to also capitalize “White” here, not just for the sake of orthographic symmetry, but also because I disagree with the second claim. Instead, I concur with those who argue that White identity, too, must be seen as a social construct – with its own complex history – rather than simply as a neutral, objective fact. As for the White supremacists (who I obviously do not support in any way), normalizing the capital letter in antiracist circles would strip the 2 convention of its racist implications. 1 See, for instance, Dean Baquet and Phil Corbett, “Uppercasing ‘Black’”, June 20, 2020, The New York Times Company,https://www.nytco.com/press/uppercasingblack/;and David Bauder,“AP Says ItWill Capitalize Black but Not White”,AP News, July 20, 2020, The Associated Press, https://apnews.com/7e36c00c5af0436abc09e051261fff1f. 2 See also Kwame Anthony Appiah, “The Case for Capitalizing the B in Black”,The Atlantic, June 18, 2020, The Atlantic Monthly Group, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/timetocapitalizeblackandwhite/613159/. Appiah offers an excellent and nuanced summary of the debate on “Black” and “White”, making a convincing case that “whatever ruleapplies to one should applyto the other”.

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