Murder with Music

To get it out of the way at the beginning, the film was made in either late 1946 or early 1947, not 1941. We know this for two reasons: (1) In the scene in the secretary's office, there's a poster on the wall for Stepin Fetchit's movie "Big Timers", which was a 1945 film, and (2) there was no "Nellie Hill" in 1941; Nellie Harrell didn't marry Charles Wesley Hill until 1942. The acting is horrendous; fortunately, the music is really good. Not a spoiler, but ask yourself this: "how, exactly, do you know the piano player is dead?"

To get it out of the way at the beginning, the film was made in either late 1946 or early 1947, not 1941. We know this for two reasons: (1) In the scene in the secretary's office, there's a poster on the wall for Stepin Fetchit's movie "Big Timers", which was a 1945 film, and (2) there was no "Nellie Hill" (or "Nelle" as it's misspelled in the credits) in 1941; Nellie Harrell didn't marry Charles Wesley Hill until 1942. The acting is horrendous; fortunately, the music is really good. Not a spoiler, but ask yourself this: "how, exactly, do you know the piano player is dead?"

This movie was originally shot as "Mistaken Identity", although it's unclear if it was ever released at the time. It was then cut up, some new scenes filmed, and reassembled as "Murder With Music" (the scenes from "Mistaken Identity" were intercut as flashbacks).

Back in the 1920s into the 50s, America's movie theaters were often segregated...with black audience members either forced to sit in designated 'blacks only' sections or they were outright banned from theaters. Not surprisingly, this racism resulted in entrepreneurs in the black community opening their own theaters and producing their own movies. Some are rather entertaining but most are pretty poor when you watch them today...mostly because the budgets for the films were paltry. "Murder with Music" is one of those films designed for black movie theaters... if you are curious to watch it.

The story begins with a pushy and cocky guy barging into the editor's office looking for a job with the newspaper. Instead of telling him to get lost or hiring him, the patient editor tells the guy a story about another reporter...one whose cockiness got him in a heap of trouble. Interestingly, soon within this story the cocky reporter watches television*....so it becomes a story within a story within a story for some time! The lady in the editor's story, Nellie, is very pretty and very popular. When one of her old boyfriends is killed, the question is who did it and why. Confusing...huh?

So is it any good? Well, some of the acting is suspect--with quite a few scenes where the actors' delivery was poor. In more expensive productions, the directors probably would have re-shot the scenes...but most of the black films of the era simply didn't have the budget for re-shoots. I should point out that the editor, in contrast, was a pretty good actor and it's a shame Bob Howard didn't do more acting....with less than a half dozen credits to his name. There is also a lot of music and dancing in the film. Most of it looks VERY cramped as they pushed the performers into minuscule sets...possibly to save money. Despite this, some of the music was exceptional--particularly the band about 15 minutes into the film. At times, however, the music and dancing acts seemed like distractions from the plot...though a few were enjoyable distractions. My overall verdict is that compared to similar productions, this one is about average....though compared to the average cheap B-film of the era it comes up a bit short. Entertaining...provided you cut the film some slack.



*Televisions were nearly unheard of back in 1941 and were definitely in the early stages. Only a couple American cities had broadcasts and what they did broadcast was extremely limited. And, the early TVs were often the weird glass projected units like the one in this film. Also, the show on TV featured a mostly black cast...along with an actor in black-face! Such racism, surprisingly, did creep into some of these productions and I've seen black-face actors or Stepin Fetchit-type characters in these pictures. I also suspect the black-face actor actually might have been a black man posing as a white man posing as a black man!

Interesting to see a movie made for a black audience with an all-black cast at a time of segretion in the U. S. Some very good singing and dancing, especially Skippy Williams and his Orchestra. Clunky editing and acting and a not-good script, but interesting to see an early television which, at the time would have cost arond $395 (nearly one-third of the all male annual income - black men earned 0.6 of the white wage in 1940), and well out of the range of most Americans, let alone the target audience. The singer was clearly doing VERY well. Overall, best missed except for the historical context.

The story is told with the wraparound gimmick of newspaper editor Bob Howard on the phone, trying to get the story of the murder in time for his edition. He appears occasionally to remind the audience that, yes, this is a murder, and not just the story of Nellie Hill, trying to break into show business, with men anxious to hellp her make connections/ The actual murder takes place a couple of minutes before the end credits, and is promptly solved.

It's an excuse for the second part of the title, with good performances by Noble Sissle and his band, ad a couple of good, energetic dancing acts. Like many race movies of the era, it's not much as cinema, but is a lot of fun showing off contemporary musical acts.