HI-DE-HO (1947) + BOARDING HOUSE BLUES (1948)

With his trademark scat singing and energetic performance style, jazz legend Cab Calloway (The Blues Brothers) stars in Hi De Ho as a bandleader who contends with a jealous girlfriend and gangland thugs in his rise to fame. In Boarding House Blues, Moms Mabely stars as the owner of a lodging house for touring musicians, with Dusty Fletcher her most troublesome tenant. Black-cast films originated as bare-bones productions manufactured to satisfy the demand of segregated theaters. But by the late 1940s, they had grown more ambitious in scale, showcasing the singers, dancers, and comedians who had begun to cross over to mainstream audiences during World War II, but were still denied entry to the studio system. Unhindered by the oppressive blanket of studio oversight, these marginalized films were more risqué than their big-budget counterparts, and have a freshness and vibrancy often missing from Hollywood formula product. Restored in 4K from the original 35mm negatives preserved by the Library of Congress.