Blackbird Fantasy

Dorothy Dandridge and. Billy Mitchell, both dressed in bird costumes, sing swing versions of "Listen to the Mockingbird" and "Titwillow: in this soundie.

Soundies were music videos four years before MTV was a thing. They played on a device called the Mills Panaram, which you might find in bars and nightclubs. From 1940 through 1946, Mills and a few other producers turned out more than two thousand of these three-minute short films. Usually they were musical numbers like this one. You could find well established artists, and occasionally someone starting out atthe bottom who later became well known, like Miss Dandrige.