Review of Black and Tan (1929) by Ken S — 20 Nov 2012

Black and Tan is a 1929 short, notable now for the first screen appearance by Duke Ellington. This film, a musical short is written and directed by Dudley Murphy, an avant-garde director of early American cinema. This film, perhaps is most successful, exhibits the ideas and thoughts of the Harlem Renaissance Movement, known at the time as the New Negro Movement, that saw a flowering of literature, cinema, art and poetry of black origin (key figures include Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes).

Black and Tan contains an early portrayal of the life of poverty lived by many black Americans at the time. Duke Ellington and his wife Fredi Washington live in a cramped apartment, with their instruments, including Duke's piano. Duke and his musicians are working on a new piece when two debt collector's turn up. These figures, racial stereotypes, accept liquor as payment but the threat of their return and their possession of the piano threatens the sanity, health and livelihood of Duke and Fredi. But Fredi has a plan - she is a dancer, and together they can make their fortune. Only she is not well, and one more dance might kill her.

This is a lyrical, beautiful and memorable expression of black-American anguish in the 1920s. Its visually represents the struggle and rage of everyday citizens in Harlem - that these people must physically exhaust themselves, if not kill themselves, to earn enough money to simply survive. The music extenuates this anger, and Dudley Murphy's direction - expressionistic and avant-garde - is note-perfect.

Black and Tan, then, is a powerful and important piece of American cinema (not just black cinema), a polemic of enormous power and grace, and should be seen by anybody with an interest in cinema, history, and humanity. It is a film that in its 19 short minutes moves more completely than many longer films, and will live in the memory more fully. It is that good.