IMHO, dancing and music is natural for human beings. The shaming of it, and banning of it, has been done by religion over the years. I feel sorry for people involved in religions where they are not allowed to dance and enjoy music, and moving their bodies in happy, fun ways to the music. Dancing is sensual, fun, sexual, freeing, and some religions have to censure that.
Amazing! Musical talent better than anything seen in mainstream films of the time, and dance moves that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. Only institutionalized racism could hold this down, and then, only temporarily.
Awesome. Loved that piano player most, but also the lady doing the tap dancing, the four guys who joined her, and the cut scene of burning and writhing was brilliant choreographic art -- suggesting flames and passion.
The True Golden Days of Performing Real-Art, with a real live orchestra, simple microphones they just danced and sung their hearts out with such true voices and organic gusto. Actually, the present world of superficial frivolity and talent-less wannabes would never see such astounding performances again. Thanks to you-tubers like you, these priceless performing are preserved, shared with us and so evermore preserved. Thanks so much for keeping such precious art alive. Jesus Bello
I suspect you would appreciate the Korean pop group 17. They have 13 members in total with a collection of talents for songwriting, choreography, dancing, fine voices, fashion and self management. They rehearse every song and routine to this old level of precision and perfection. Something rarely seen in pop today. The musics not bad either.
I was looking for Howard “Stretch” Johnson among the male dancers. He was Lena Horn’s dance partner. He was my friend. He died from prostate cancer some years back in Galveston, Texas. He had been the technical director of the movie COTTON CLUB starring Richard Gere. I miss ya, Stretch 😍✝️🌺🙏
Amazing performers and musicians! This was a sweet little slice of history, and the 'indecent' scenes were probably pretty racy at the time, but nothing compared to what you see on TV nowadays (and UA-cam as well). I applaud their abandon!
I see nothing exept a phenomenal piano player and a group of extremely talented and extraordinarily accomplished first class dancers at their best. In fact I'm going to mail the link to my best friend whose nine-year-old daughter is a dance student.
I know that I'm commenting waaaay late, but I did tap and jazz dance up until my 20's-30's (didn't know that I was such a sinning little tramp!), and am a 58 year old Caucasian lady who has always loved to dance both tap and jazz!!
Beautiful dancers and signers! the pianist is so talented, he is even make some funny face while playing!! he even remind me of woody woodpecker (at 4.42-43)!!
I guess at that time in history in the US that was considered risqué. This is nothing compared to many of our Cuban dances which when executed properly call for a lot of motion in the hips. For that alone we wouldn't only have been censored but probably thrown in jail as well. I loved this dance routine, it was very interesting.
It's great that these classics are being saved and shared. I just loves that sweet little ole lady in the nursing I home. What a wonderful thing for her to finally see e such memories because of someone's interest. She was a cutie then and now. Wish it was mentioned what films the numbers came from and who produced them.
Absolutely ridiculous that this was cut, if you ask me. And banned. If you watch many Pre-Hayes code films (especially the gangster and crime dramas of the time), before Hollywood made the decision to censor itself and not let outside forces do so, the films were blatant, raunchy, and all sorts of debauchery was hinted at or made into double entendres. In other words, no different from many modern-day films. However, many of these 1930s films managed to stay clever, HAVE A PLOTLINE, whereas, contemporary sex comedies, and what stands for 'modern romance', is far, far worse. At least at the end of this reel, we get some psychedelic lighting and bumping and grinding. Much more tame than what we see all the time on music award shows, VH1 and MTV, I'm looking at you.
WOW! 20+ years before "Jerry Lee Lewis" This piano player is MARVELOUS! ...makes me wonder if Jerry Lee saw any of this stuff and, Ehem.."borrowed" from it?
Lewis was born in 1935 to the poor farming family of Elmo and Mamie Lewis in Ferriday, Concordia Parish, in eastern Louisiana.[16] In his youth, he began playing piano with two of his cousins, Mickey Gilley (later a popular country music singer) and Jimmy Swaggart (later a popular television evangelist). His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Lewis was influenced by a piano-playing older cousin, Carl McVoy (who later recorded with Bill Black's Combo), the radio, and the sounds from Haney's Big House, a black juke joint across the tracks.[17] On the live album By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, Lewis is heard naming Moon Mullican as an artist who inspired him.[citation needed] He was also influenced by the Great American Songbook and popular country singers like Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams. Williams in particular struck a chord with Lewis, who told biographer Rick Bragg in 2014, "I felt something when I listened to that man. I felt something . Jerry and his relatives were talented. Jerry did not do well with religion or being enrolled in a Christian school. He liked the wild side of music and was influenced by black music.
LOL "Cats" is more risque than this, but then again, it was the 30s. Twenty years later, Elvis' hips gyrating on the Ed Sullivan show made censors lose their shit.
Another thing: if this had been retrieved from the cutting room or the trash, it would have been in the form of three separate color-separation negatives, possibly un-edited and without sound, not an edited and scored Black and White print! I suspect that alternate versions circulated, perhaps one Foreign and one Domestic. Maybe.
that was great. how heartbreaking for the artists that wonderful piece was censored. idiots making millions today would never be able to compete with those dancers and musicians.
I think you're absolutely right,, sampa2. The pianist certainly wasn't the Duke, who was in charge of all the Cotton Club's music. I think this was a burlesque show based on the Club's routine.
OH MAN!!@@ Soul-Sis's from Yesteryear...... And of course Sobro playing that stand up Bass...And LASTLY that Piano Man... B4 Jerry Lee Lewis & Little Richard........
People had class back, then look at us now, sagging pants, nappy hair, old men in basket ball outfits, onstage with shorts, t-shirts, we look like crap now days, asses out underwear showing, and parents letting it happen discraceful.
I wonder if it's actually a studio film. Those costumes, the set, the dancers are rehearsed like movie studios did. All seems outside the budget of a nightclub. There is more nudity, and raw sexuality in regular films of the 1920s than shown here. If this is cutting-room scenes, it's post code, and BTW, it's a "talkie" so I'm betting it's a studio film.
Umm... where was the orgy? Oh, in the minds of the white producers? The writhing scene with the light coming from the floor was interesting, wonder what the effect was supposed to be. It was always the white directors who cast black performers as hyper-sexed, uninhibited animals. It's a bit hard to see these talented musicians and dancers having to mug for the camera, bug out their eyes, open their mouths extra wide. At the same time there were serious black artists like Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington and Pearl Primas who defined their own cultural expression, though it took time.
I think the pianist is really Louis Armstrong! he is amazing whether he is or not. In any case, excellent dance and song number!! batter than any number of nowadays
Boy! These guys really worked hard for their dough! As for the censors - they must have had really dirty minds to find anything remotely offensive in this scene. All I saw were a bunch of beautiful girls dancing in a gorgeous routine. As for an orgy - oh, come on - that had to be in the censors imagination - poor sod.
+willie otoole Exactly and that beauty was the problem. Dark skinned women were supposed to be casted as fat and manly with deep voices. Beauty was for the light and white which isn't much different of a standard today.
It was definitely sexy - but that's been the whole Mammy/Jezebel argument about black women for ages. It's ridiculous and not fair but welcome to how silly humans can be.
Breathtaking. There is nothing new under the sun. I laugh when I see Madonna, Beyoncé and Gaga acting as if they invented the forbidden. They are very late to the game. Regurgitated fare.
All that censorship and people got busy anyway. Certainly considered tame by today's standards. What a shame, it'd have been great for the people of that generation to see the full production.
Pianist is Maurice Rocco.
True classical performance, no one can come close to this caliber ever again .
Wow! These dancers were in SERIOUSLY AWESOME shape to have pulled this off. 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
This is so beautiful! So privileged to be able to see this today! So much talent on display! A time long
Gone.
Beautiful...my son who is learning to play the piano was inspired.... now he is practicing everyday....Thank you ❤️❤️
IMHO, dancing and music is natural for human beings. The shaming of it, and banning of it, has been done by religion over the years. I feel sorry for people involved in religions where they are not allowed to dance and enjoy music, and moving their bodies in happy, fun ways to the music. Dancing is sensual, fun, sexual, freeing, and some religions have to censure that.
Amazing! Musical talent better than anything seen in mainstream films of the time, and dance moves that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. Only institutionalized racism could hold this down, and then, only temporarily.
the piano man was amazing...
Awesome. Loved that piano player most, but also the lady doing the tap dancing, the four guys who joined her, and the cut scene of burning and writhing was brilliant choreographic art -- suggesting flames and passion.
You can see where Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard got their inspiration from just watching the pianists antics.
The True Golden Days of Performing Real-Art, with a real live orchestra, simple microphones they just danced and sung their hearts out with such true voices and organic gusto. Actually, the present world of superficial frivolity and talent-less wannabes would never see such astounding performances again. Thanks to you-tubers like you, these priceless performing are preserved, shared with us and so evermore preserved. Thanks so much for keeping such precious art alive. Jesus Bello
I suspect you would appreciate the Korean pop group 17. They have 13 members in total with a collection of talents for songwriting, choreography, dancing, fine voices, fashion and self management. They rehearse every song and routine to this old level of precision and perfection. Something rarely seen in pop today. The musics not bad either.
Such class, grace and elegance!! With Cab Calloway and Jerry Lee Lewis added in!! Just plain talent and lots of fun!!
wow!!!!!! this is 1000 times better than now!! I love this!!!
Wish it had a cable station that showed these classics in it's entirety all day and all night......
Such wonderful unrecognized talent!
I was looking for Howard “Stretch” Johnson among the male dancers. He was Lena Horn’s dance partner. He was my friend. He died from prostate cancer some years back in Galveston, Texas. He had been the technical director of the movie COTTON CLUB starring Richard Gere. I miss ya, Stretch 😍✝️🌺🙏
Amazing performers and musicians! This was a sweet little slice of history, and the 'indecent' scenes were probably pretty racy at the time, but nothing compared to what you see on TV nowadays (and UA-cam as well). I applaud their abandon!
Scandolous! lol. What the hell happened to our perception of what is acceptable, between then and now?
so this is what my father was grooving to as a teenager in Harlem in the 30s. I'm jealous!
It was beautiful I seen Nothing obcene about this at all
All i can say is wow 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 they put our generation to shame with that dancing 🤦🏾♀️👏🏾😍
I see nothing exept a phenomenal piano player and a group of extremely talented and extraordinarily accomplished first class dancers at their best.
In fact I'm going to mail the link to my best friend whose nine-year-old daughter is a dance student.
This was back when people had to have talent before they became stars.
Would you thought that if you lived back in that day?
I know that I'm commenting waaaay late, but I did tap and jazz dance up until my 20's-30's (didn't know that I was such a sinning little tramp!), and am a 58 year old Caucasian lady who has always loved to dance both tap and jazz!!
Wow!!!! Thanks for sharing!
1930's break dancing!
Wow. Could they move. Elated to have found this gem. Thrilled for the entire 6 minutes or so. Thank you much.
I'm enchanted by the video and the level of comments. Just want to hug everyone here. Human beings in the house. 😂🙋💕💞🌟🌟🌟🌟
Beautiful dancers and signers! the pianist is so talented, he is even make some funny face while playing!! he even remind me of woody woodpecker (at 4.42-43)!!
I guess at that time in history in the US that was considered risqué. This is nothing compared to many of our Cuban dances which when executed properly call for a lot of motion in the hips. For that alone we wouldn't only have been censored but probably thrown in jail as well. I loved this dance routine, it was very interesting.
Without our fine African Americans we would have no music.
Heavens, don't tell Samuel Barber; and, what would Bach, say about that....hummmm..? Was Paganini, a Meanie....? Expand the Horizon....
It's great that these classics are being saved and shared. I just loves that sweet little ole lady in the nursing I home. What a wonderful thing for her to finally see e such memories because of someone's interest. She was a cutie then and now. Wish it was mentioned what films the numbers came from and who produced them.
VOGUES OF 1938, produced by Walter Wanger, starring Warner Baxter.
Absolutely ridiculous that this was cut, if you ask me. And banned. If you watch many Pre-Hayes code films (especially the gangster and crime dramas of the time), before Hollywood made the decision to censor itself and not let outside forces do so, the films were blatant, raunchy, and all sorts of debauchery was hinted at or made into double entendres. In other words, no different from many modern-day films. However, many of these 1930s films managed to stay clever, HAVE A PLOTLINE, whereas, contemporary sex comedies, and what stands for 'modern romance', is far, far worse. At least at the end of this reel, we get some psychedelic lighting and bumping and grinding. Much more tame than what we see all the time on music award shows, VH1 and MTV, I'm looking at you.
+Kay Fey Yes, correct
Will H. Hays set American cinema back how many decades? And we're still trying to catch up.
It's so over the line now...
Wow...Maurice Rocco killin' it !
Thanks for that rare exciting gem.
So talented artists!! Wonderful video, thank you!
Thank you for saving this!
Damn I wish I had a time machine, I just know I'd hit all the speakeasies and dance halls of the 20's and 30's that I could.
cha5 me too...
cha5 oh please, take me with you!
Well that will be three of us, what fun...
rustymouse it will be so much fun that we might miss the flight back...
rustymouse hurray, lost in dance.
The roaing groove is coming back round ! I love that jazz 💚✅
Man, this is crazy amazing! And the ending... I love it!
I just looooove my black people🖤🖤🖤🖤
WOW! 20+ years before "Jerry Lee Lewis" This piano player is MARVELOUS! ...makes me wonder if Jerry Lee saw any of this stuff and, Ehem.."borrowed" from it?
Funny, he put me to mind of Jerry Lee too. Fantastic!
Lewis was born in 1935 to the poor farming family of Elmo and Mamie Lewis in Ferriday, Concordia Parish, in eastern Louisiana.[16] In his youth, he began playing piano with two of his cousins, Mickey Gilley (later a popular country music singer) and Jimmy Swaggart (later a popular television evangelist). His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Lewis was influenced by a piano-playing older cousin, Carl McVoy (who later recorded with Bill Black's Combo), the radio, and the sounds from Haney's Big House, a black juke joint across the tracks.[17] On the live album By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, Lewis is heard naming Moon Mullican as an artist who inspired him.[citation needed] He was also influenced by the Great American Songbook and popular country singers like Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams. Williams in particular struck a chord with Lewis, who told biographer Rick Bragg in 2014, "I felt something when I listened to that man. I felt something . Jerry and his relatives were talented. Jerry did not do well with religion or being enrolled in a Christian school. He liked the wild side of music and was influenced by black music.
Yep. The same way Elvis and Pat Boone ahem.."borrowed" from their black musical brethren. Lol 😅
Yes watch the movie about him
@@RogueWave2030 He put me in the mindset more of Cab Calloway.
This was a great number, sad it was cut, really no need!
It is good to see dark skinned women; this was very rare. I guess they needed real singers and not only faces to placate a racist white aduience?
The dance they do at 3:30 in is one of best exercises you can do. Its difficult to master.
LOL "Cats" is more risque than this, but then again, it was the 30s. Twenty years later, Elvis' hips gyrating on the Ed Sullivan show made censors lose their shit.
Scandalous...give me Reel #2, please!
This is a film that's worthy of restoration (including the censored part in the spot where it was originally intended)
i truly wish entertainment was like this today
Start a petition haha I liked it too. Im a guy btw on my cuz tablet.
It is there. Look for it.
What those guys are doing from 3:30 on looks a whole lot like break dancing!
actually you're right
+ibm650 I'd say that break dancing looks a lot like this dance, not the other way around.
Nothing is new under the sun...I'm pretty sure that I've seen the Moon Walk in a film from this period.
There's nothing new under the sun 😏
@@galolito Most probably Cab Calloway.
The, Piano Playing Guy was Great.. 'Little Richard' watched this dude Close . Fantastic..Singing/ Dancin..
Wow Thanks for sharing. Amazing Talent!!!
Another thing: if this had been retrieved from the cutting room or the trash, it would have been in the form of three separate color-separation negatives, possibly un-edited and without sound, not an edited and scored Black and White print! I suspect that alternate versions circulated, perhaps one Foreign and one Domestic. Maybe.
I want one of those capes.
that was great. how heartbreaking for the artists that wonderful piece was censored. idiots making millions today would never be able to compete with those dancers and musicians.
Sad but true
Great ..! But this does not look to be in the 30's if so it must have been close to the 40's or even late 40's but still a great find !
I think you're absolutely right,, sampa2. The pianist certainly wasn't the Duke, who was in charge of all the Cotton Club's music. I think this was a burlesque show based on the Club's routine.
this is pure magic ❤️
What a great find these films are !
MARVELOUS!!!!
The last female singer I saw singing and enjoying it with a smile relating to the women in this video is Ms. Stephanie Mills.
Old Southern Slang: “Every dog has its day”. What was banned is now seen by over 200,000 viewers. 💻💃🏽🎶
I think this was originally passed by the Hays Office(actually the Breen Office by then)but changed after Southern complaints.
Who are the incredible dancers? That's a lot more interesting than the fact it was "censored."
OH MAN!!@@ Soul-Sis's from Yesteryear...... And of course Sobro playing that stand up Bass...And LASTLY that Piano Man... B4 Jerry Lee Lewis & Little Richard........
People were break dancing in the 30s and inventing style back then we are an awesome race and culture
Give me a time machine awesome.
My how time's have changed, love it!
I've seen white women dress with less on during this time. If I could go back in time for a hour just to see Harlem when it was in Vogue.
That footwork though 👏👏👏
THANKS for posting this
Nice. Thanks
People had class back, then look at us now, sagging pants, nappy hair, old men in basket ball outfits, onstage with shorts, t-shirts, we look like crap now days, asses out underwear showing, and parents letting it happen discraceful.
Now that's true Entertainment!
Where's the time machine ? I need to go party with them !😀😀
Black American Music - "PIANO style" carried down to "Little Richard" and others.
TALK ABOUT INABILITY TO RECOGNISED TALENT. THEY REMOVED IT BECAUSE IT RAISED THE BAR AND THE COMPETITION BECAME TOO MUCH.
WOT FUCKING ORGY! The Palladium's Tiller girls wore the same kit
I wonder if it's actually a studio film. Those costumes, the set, the dancers are rehearsed like movie studios did. All seems outside the budget of a nightclub. There is more nudity, and raw sexuality in regular films of the 1920s than shown here. If this is cutting-room scenes, it's post code, and BTW, it's a "talkie" so I'm betting it's a studio film.
It's the 1930's. I love it!!!!!
Who is the piano player? What a talent! I hope he got acknowledgement on the credits!
Umm... where was the orgy? Oh, in the minds of the white producers? The writhing scene with the light coming from the floor was interesting, wonder what the effect was supposed to be. It was always the white directors who cast black performers as hyper-sexed, uninhibited animals. It's a bit hard to see these talented musicians and dancers having to mug for the camera, bug out their eyes, open their mouths extra wide. At the same time there were serious black artists like Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington and Pearl Primas who defined their own cultural expression, though it took time.
That must have been fun for dancers and audience!
I think the pianist is really Louis Armstrong! he is amazing whether he is or not. In any case, excellent dance and song number!! batter than any number of nowadays
***** : It's Maurice Rocco.
@Sarita W. - That is not Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong played the trumpet, not piano.
just an amazing level of showmanship
great music and dancing
Boy! These guys really worked hard for their dough!
As for the censors - they must have had really dirty minds to find anything remotely offensive in this scene.
All I saw were a bunch of beautiful girls dancing in a gorgeous routine.
As for an orgy - oh, come on - that had to be in the censors imagination - poor sod.
+willie otoole Exactly and that beauty was the problem. Dark skinned women were supposed to be casted as fat and manly with deep voices. Beauty was for the light and white which isn't much different of a standard today.
+willie otoole true
willie otoole this is innocent by today’s “hood hip-hop” culture...
@@ejdarly4733 Exactly. Well stated.
It was definitely sexy - but that's been the whole Mammy/Jezebel argument about black women for ages. It's ridiculous and not fair but welcome to how silly humans can be.
beautiful dark chocolate .......oh my my my ...
2reeler
You said thank God this rejected take was saved ?
AMEN brother
My grand daddy used to tell me I didn't have a clue how hard they got down in his day and he wasn't lying
holy shit fam this goes haaaaard
Thanks for posting.
Priceless indeed!!!
This film came out in the Reefer Madness days
Breathtaking. There is nothing new under the sun. I laugh when I see Madonna, Beyoncé and Gaga acting as if they invented the forbidden. They are very late to the game. Regurgitated fare.
Your right.
I need the lyrics of this song
All that censorship and people got busy anyway. Certainly considered tame by today's standards. What a shame, it'd have been great for the people of that generation to see the full production.
Sure is different! Thank you.
Have you seen Rites of Spring? This is wonderful but entirely mild.
Awesome dancing!