Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
q2K BHP
Black History Portal
THE BHP WIRE —
HIDDEN TRUTHS
What's New!
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| The Duke Is Tops | |
|---|---|
 Poster from the 1943 re-release as The Bronze Venus | |
| Directed by | William Nolte |
| Written by | Adaptation: Phil Dunham |
| Produced by | Harry M. Popkin |
| Starring | Ralph Cooper Lena Horne |
| Cinematography | Robert E. Cline J. Henry Kruse |
| Edited by | Alice Greenwood Arthur A. Brooks |
| Music by | Harvey Brooks Ben Ellison |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Million Dollar Productions |
Release date |
|
Running time | 73 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Duke Is Tops is a 1938 American musical film released by Million Dollar Productions and directed by William Nolte. The film was later released in 1944 under the title The Bronze Venus. It features top-billed Lena Horne in her film debut, along with Ralph Cooper. The film was one of the low-budget musical film "race movies" made in the 1930s and 1940s for the African-American market. The casts and production teams of these films were almost all black, and the music reflected current tastes in jazz and rhythm and blues.
Duke Davis (Cooper) is a stage-show promoter in love with Ethel Andrews (Horne), a popular singer in his company dubbed "the Bronze Venus". Duke finds out that big-time promoters from New York City want to propel Ethel into the big leagues, but Ethel, out of loyalty and love for Duke, refuses to leave his small-time show. Duke, in a selfless act, orchestrates a deception to force Ethel to leave his show in order to better her career. However, the loss of the Bronze Venus causes Duke's own career to collapse and he soon finds himself working on a travelling medicine show where he goes from town to town, introducing a series of specialty musical acts and helping to sell Doc Dorando's all-purpose elixir. But when he hears that Ethel's New York gig is a flop, Duke goes to New York, where he is reunited with her. Soon after, Duke combines his stage show, the medicine show and Ethel's singing into a top nightclub act.
Speciality acts appear throughout the film, including Willie Covan, the Basin Street Boys, Rubberneck Holmes, Cats and the Fiddle, the Marie Bryant Swing Band, and the Harlemania Orchestra.
The film was shot in 10 days on a shoe-string budget.[1]
Ralph Cooper planned to star alongside Nina Mae McKinney as the female lead, but her delayed return from her appearances in Australia led to the role to be recast.[2]
The Duke Is Tops features the film debut of singer Lena Horne, then aged 20, who had yet to develop the style she would use in her later films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She has a rare major acting role in this film, absent from her later career except for 1943's Cabin in the Sky, Stormy Weather and a few others. The original top-billed star, Ralph Cooper, was host of Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater for 50 years.[3]
The movie features singer Lena Horne and the Cats and the Fiddle singing group. Horne as Ethel sings the Harvey Brooks & Ben Ellison composition "I Know You Remember",[4] with lyrics apropos of the film, "You and I have made a small beginning..." Horne also sings "Don't Let Our Love Song Turn Me Blue", with a lyric that foreshadows one of her future great roles: "True love will guide us through stormy weather"; and she reprises "I Know You Remember". The Cats & the Fiddle sing "Killin' Jive."
"I Know You Remember" and "Don't Let Our Love Song Turn Into a Blues," had words and music by Ben Ellison and Harvey Brooks. The composers of "Harlem is Harmony," "When You Smoke" and "Thursday Evening Swing" are undetermined.[1]
Variety wrote about Lena Horne that she was "a rather inept actress, but something to look at and hear."[1] The film's premiere was a benefit for the NAACP, but Lena Horne's husband – who was opposed to her making the film – refused to allow her to attend, because she hadn't yet been paid for her work on the film.[1][5]
The Duke Is Tops has been released on DVD in North America. The film is in the public domain in the U.S., and as such is available in multiple editions.[6]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Duke Is Tops is a 1938 American musical film released by Million Dollar Productions and directed by William Nolte. The film was later released in 1944 under the title The Bronze Venus. It features top-billed Lena Horne in her film debut, along with Ralph Cooper. The film was one of the low-budget musical film "race movies" made in the 1930s and 1940s for the African-American market. The casts and production teams of these films were almost all black, and the music reflected current tastes in jazz and rhythm and blues.
Ralph Cooper (January 16, 1908 – August 4, 1992) was an American actor, screenwriter, dancer and choreographer. Cooper is best known as the original master of ceremonies and founder of amateur night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City, in 1935. He wrote, produced, directed and acted in ten motion pictures. Titles include The Duke Is Tops, Dark Manhattan, Gangsters on the Loose and Gang War. Because of his debonair good looks, he was known as "dark Gable" in the 1930s.
William McKinley Covan (March 4, 1898 – May 7, 1989) was an American tap dancer, actor, vaudeville performer best known for being a member of the tap quartet The Four Covans and a choreographer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Willie Covan was born on March 4, 1898, in Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly after, his family moved to Chicago. By 1903, Willie was already tapping to the rhythms of the city. When was six years old, he began a six-year career as a pickaninny in the numerous vaudeville shows around the city. There he watched dancers and began to pick up technique from miming them. By age 12, he was tired of pick tapping and started out to make a name for himself in the vaudeville circuit. Covan got his first big break winning an amateur tap contest around 1910. From that he was taken under the wings of legendary tap dancers "Slow Kid" Thompson, and Leonard Ruffin. In 1927, he formed the tap quartet, The Four Covans. They became an instant sensation in the United States and in Europe. In the early 1930s, Covan moved to Hollywood where he began working with screen stars such as Shirley Temple, Jeanette MacDonald, Mae West, Mickey Rooney, Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas and Ann Miller. It was at Eleanor Powell's insistence that Covan had his own bungalow on the MGM lot. Among the handful of films in which he himself appeared, the one that best showcased Covan's talents is The Duke Is Tops. While at MGM, he opened his own dance studio in Los Angeles, The Willie Covan Dance Studio, where he and his wife Florence taught for 35 years. Later in life he was seen in films such as The Big Fix and Finian's Rainbow. Covan is most credited for creating many classic tap dance steps, including the Rhythm Waltz Clog, and Around the World. Covan died on May 7, 1989, in his home in Los Angeles and is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.
Neva Mary Peoples was a singer and dancer who appeared in several films in the United States. She performed as a singer, dancer, and chorus girl. Peoples was from San Francisco. A 1936 news clipping refers to her as the "colored blues singer and dancer from Frank Sebastian's Cotton Club in Hollywood." Her film debut was in the 1938 melodrama Gang Smashers singing "That's What You Get in Harlem". She played Ella in The Duke is Tops (1938). She was in a cabaret scene in the 1939 movie, One Dark Night. A 1942 photograph captured her and fellow performers in zoot suit costumes for the Republic Studio film, Hit Parade of 1943. She married Phil Moore in 1937 and had a son, George Phillip Moore III, in 1939. Moore's orchestra backed one of her performances.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Madam C.J. Walker