Search - Race Movies: Hi-De-Ho/The Devil's Daughter/Beware/Reet, Petite, and Gone on DVD

Good collection of early Black films

Andre M. | Mt. Pleasant, SC United States | 11/18/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fine collection of early Black American films from the 1930s and 40s. It begins with Cab Calloway in "Hi De Ho" (1947), a story of Cab fighting gangsters and a sluttish "girlfriend" (Jeni Le Gon as Minnie the Moocher-who he regrettably slaps early on in the film-shades of "Purple Rain") to achieve musical success and love with the right woman. Domestic violence issues aside, it's quite entertaining. "The Devils Daughter" (ca. 1939) features the legendary Nina Mae McKinney in a rather hokey but amusing tale about voodoo in Haiti. "Beware" is one of the best of Jazz comedian Louis Jordan's musical comedies. An interesting tale of his efforts to save a Black college (this was some 40 years before Spike Lee's "School Daze") from a crooked president. Lots of good music and clowning with a good story. LJ strikes again in "Reet Petite and Gone," not one of his better films, but some really entertaining songs and antics from LJ and femme fatale Mabel Lee. See these films and dig what Black Cinema was like prior to Superfly, Sweetback, and Spike Lee."