Murder on Lenox Avenue

Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

I'd be the biggest liar in the world if I told you that I knew what this movie was about. There seems to be at least four different story lines going on as well as various musical numbers. One subplot deals with a couple men fighting after who knows what. There's another subplot about a girl torn between two men and of course her father wants her to marry the one she doesn't love. Then there's some union propaganda going on to close things out.

MURDER ON LENOX AVENUE has the title and the poster of some sort of crime film but the crime doesn't happen until the closing seconds so I'm pretty sure people in 1941 were probably just as confused by this film as those watching it today would be. Basically this is another extremely low-budget race film that doesn't have too much going for it outside the fact that it might appeal to those who are interested in watching these types of movies.

The biggest problem with this one is that it has all the bad things that most of these movies have. That's the fact that there simply wasn't any sort of budget and very little talent involved. Not only that but you've also got a story-line that makes very little sense and there's no question that it's all over the place in regards to what it's trying to be about. There are a couple interesting music numbers and I'd also say it was interesting seeing the style of clothing that was being worn but outside of that there's not much here.

The Better Business League throws out crooked leader Norman Astwood. He plots his vengeance. The League works at recruiting Gus Smith to lead them. He has his own problems. He wants his daughter, Dene Larry to marry two-timing Ernie Ransom, and to pursue her career as a teacher in Harlem. She is in love with Earl Sydnor, and wishes to go with him to teach down South.

This film -- they were called "race films" in this period -- is a good one. Although I am often bothered by the poor line readings in these movies, director Arthur Dreifuss deals effectively with this problem, by having a lot of the lines delivered as speeches, or while the characters are angry, motivating the actors to put more fire into their words. In addition, the musical numbers in this movie -- a common method of filling out such works -- are very well performed. The comedy is well done and naturalistic, an unidentified bass player struggling to carry his heavy instrument upstairs, and Alec Lovejoy puzzling over how to make a mixed drink he doesn't know how to, stand out.

Race movies usually played only in Blacks-Only theaters in this period, and had to be produced with the low box-office totals of that in mind. They were hampered by low production budgets, which revealed themselves in bad set decoration and the type of performance that revealed untrained and under-rehearsed actors. This movie had to deal with the same financial restrictions, but largely overcomes them to produce an entertaining and passionate movie.

First of all, this IS NOT a murder mystery, despite the title. There is a murder committed, but it happens in the last minute or two of the film, and it's no mystery who did it as it's shown on screen. Black-cast films of the 30s and 40s are usually interesting to watch, even though they are usually on a technical level about one or two rungs below PRC or Monogram at their most threadbare. This one is no exception. There's some good swing music (and some bad syrupy numbers from a young lady singer), some good performances by Mamie Smith and whoever played the bartender (the scene where he makes a "brown bomber" drink is hilarious!), and interesting plot elements involving the small merchants of Harlem banding together against exploitation. However, the film is not well-paced, too much time is spent talking rather than acting, and some of the younger actors are a bit wooden. The great blues-vaudeville vocalist Mamie Smith, the true Mother of the Blues, is fantastic in her few songs (the one on the street when she is selling her pies, near the beginning of the film, is moving and bluesy) and in her acting. How great it would have been to see her performing on stage! Much of the crew and the cast of this film made another one called Sunday SINNERS the year before, which also features some exciting scenes with Mamie Smith. Speaking of PRC, director Arthur Dreifuss actually moved UP to PRC after making this film, directing some entertaining things such as THE PAYOFF with Lee Tracy and BOSS OF BIG TOWN with John Litel, and BABY FACE MORGAN with Richard Cromwell and Robert Armstrong. He then moved up to Columbia's B unit and did two good entries in the Boston Blackie series. He wound up working for Sam Katzman in the sixties doing Riot on Sunset Strip, The Love-Ins, and the Young Runaways. Co-screenwriter Vincent Valentini also scripted such exploitation classics as SEX MADNESS (a personal favorite of mine) and BOY WHAT A GIRL, starring Tim "Kingfish" Moore. MURDER ON LENOX AVENUE doesn't seem to be going anywhere, although the supporting characters are colorful (the hunchback assistant to the crooked Mr. Marshall) and Black-cast films are of historical and cultural worth. Mamie Smith fans, however, will not want to miss her in her final years--she was still in fine form and had a power and maturity to her performance. Since (to my knowledge) we have no actual performance footage of Ms. Smith, a film like this one is the best we can do today.

Considering that it was made in 1941 without any major studio backing, don't expect very much in the way of professional Hollywood production standards. It would appear that many of the cast members had never been in front of a movie camera. On several occasions members of the cast can be seen breaking the "fourth wall" by looking into the camera. It also looks like several of the cast are reading from cue cards off camera. What was a point of interest was the dialog that called for a 'rallying around the race' as a point of pride. Not one of better "race movies" but worth the time to understand what it was like to be a black actor in 1941.

The direction is abysmal with little continuity of the plot line.

"Murder on Lenox Avenue" (1941) is a Harlem based "race film" starring Mamie Smith, Alec Lovejoy, Norman Astwood, Augustus Smith, Alberta Perkins, Edna Mae Harris, Sidney Easton, and many others. This tries to do too many things for its own good, but compared to many of this ilk, this is actually pretty good. Acting is severely stage-bound; so is cinematography, which honestly at times is stagnant. Opening scene is a nice montage, with odd angles, etc., but photography for the most part is claustrophobic and uncreative. Story regards the black race and white grifting and grafting, the rise of black business in a black community, but mostly this is about a black man who promises women his love and forfeits his promises over and over, leading to one pregnancy and suicide and eventually...well, that would be a spoiler.

Fascinating from an historical view. Not the best film ever made, but certainly better than a lot of others of its type that were made almost strictly for black theaters in black neighborhoods and starring nearly an all-black cast and made on the cheap-cheap. Music here alone would make this worthwhile. It's performed off-the-cuff, actually raw in some numbers with mistakes and all, though the jazz numbers with Smith and one or two others are quite okay, if not smooth. Musical numbers pervade the film. For the record, though I'm not sure it's really accurate, Mamie Smith has been listed as "the first recorded American female black blues artist." In 1920 she recorded "Crazy Blues".