Mr. Washington Goes to Town

In the 1920s-50s, movie theaters in many parts of the United States were segregated. As a result, many black-only theaters were created...and soon some enterprising folks thought that as long as the audiences were black, the stories they see should also star black casts. Unfortunately, the studios that made the films weren't exactly top-notch...in fact they were generally cheapo outfits who tried as best they could with very little money.

"Mr. Washington Goes to Town" is definitely the strangest of these so-called 'race films' that I've ever seen. In some ways, it plays like some mainstream cinema...sort of like the pacing of "Hellzapoppin" combined with the silliness and cheesiness of The Three Stooges or The Bowery Boys.

Schenectady (Mantan Moreland) inherits a heavily mortgaged hotel from his uncle. His friend (F. E. Miller) insists on helping Schenectady...and ends up with cushy job while his friend does all the hard work. Into this hotel arrive a ton of strange and impossible to believe characters, ranging from an invisible man, a guy with a detached head, a parrot with a larger vocabulary than most teenagers, a gorilla and much more. None of it makes a lot of sense and only when the story is over did all this madness explain itself.

Overall, this is a likable dopey film. It certainly is NOT sophisticated, well written or done all that well....but it also has a lot of energy and an infectious silliness you might enjoy.

The film, by the way, was shot over six days....and this might explain a lot!

Wallingford and his friend and cell mate Schenectady Jones are languishing in jail, Jones (Mantan Moreland) lamenting he's hungry.

Wallingford (F. E. Miller) tells him it's all in his mind, and he should consider Mahatma Gandhi, who had fasted 100 days.

Jones, though, says, "Fasting slows me down."

He has dreams. And goals. And suddenly Wallingford notices an article in the paper indicating Jones has inherited a hotel. And suddenly they both have dreams. And goals.

Next we see them both trying to operate the hotel, with the added stress that a large payment is due very soon on the mortgage.

The mortgage holder is, of course, a villain (aren't they all?). He checks into the hotel, demanding a free room, but his plan is to find a cache of money Jones's ancestor, the one who bequeathed Jones the hotel, supposedly left in the building.

Meanwhile our two heroes have to contend with a very odd assortment of guests, not one of whom makes any sense, but who do provide some fun, including a lot of silly fun.

Some of the would-be special effects flop, but at least one works extremely well.

It's not Shakespeare, but it is very worth watching, partly to see a black ensemble performing a comedy, doing so marvelously, and skin color having not one thing to do with the story.

According to her book, "William Beaudine: From Silents To Television," Wendy L. Marshall tells the story of how DIxie National Films was created in 1941. "Mr. Washington Goes to Town" was the company's first film and Beaudine was set to direct. She writes "the work was awkward at first. The cast was black; the crew was white. The comedy was specifically tailored for a black audience, yet the man responsible for directing its delivery was white...It was scripted and filmed in six days for $15,000." While it might have been made for Black audiences of the early 1940s, it is not a "so-called 'race film'" as one reviewer likes to call it. We also do not need a history lesson concerning the segregation of theaters. Comparing this film to a Three Stooges short or The Bowery Boys is just silly.

F. E. Miller and Mantan Moreland are cooling their heels in jail. Miller reads in the paper that Moreland's uncle has died and left him his hotel. So they set up in the business, with Miller as the manager, Moreland as the bellhop, an an assortment of strange guests in this nicely done comedy.

It's a mix of stage business, two-act routines. And camera trickery, that suggests to me Abbott & Costello and HELLZAPOPPIN. Of course, the rhythms are different, and the six-day shooting schedule holds down the execution, but the rat-a-tat pace of gags keeps things moving along nicely.

It's directed by William Beaudine, not a name to conjure with except to make mock, but here he demonstrates his facility for making bricks without straw, given some talent.