SWING! (1938) Cora Green, Larry Seymour & Hazel Diaz | Musical, Drama, Black Cinema | B&W

Swing! is a 1938 American race film directed, produced and written by Oscar Micheaux.

SYNOPSIS
Ted Gregory is trying to be the first black producer to mount a show on Broadway, but he has trouble with his star singer.

Mandy Jenkins (Cora Green), an African American cook for a wealthy white family in Birmingham, Alabama, discovers her husband Cornell is having an affair with Eloise Jackson (Hazel Diaz). When she confronts her husband and Eloise at a nightclub, a violent fight ensues. Eloise leaves Birmingham and relocates to the Harlem section of New York City, where she gets a job as a cabaret vocalist under the false name of Cora Smith. She is followed to Harlem by her husband, Lem, who becomes mixed up in the local crime scene. Mandy also arrives in New York, having left Cornell. She gets a job as the wardrobe mistress at the cabaret where Eloise is performing.

CAST & CREW
Cora Green as Amanda "Mandy" Jenkins
Larry Seymour as Cornell Jenkins
Hazel Diaz as Eloise Jackson / Cora Smith
Alec Lovejoy as Lem Jackson / Big Jones
Amanda Randolph as Liza Freeman
Trixie Smith as Lucy
Carman Newsome as Ted Gregory
Nat Reed as Ted, Gregory's Assistant
Sammy Gardiner as Sammy, Gregory's Assistant
Dorothy Van Engle as Lena Powell
Doli Armena as Miss Watkins, a Trumpet Player
Columbus Jackson as A Hustler
George R. Taylor as Mr. Becker, Theatrical Backer

Directed by Oscar Micheaux
Written by Oscar Micheaux (screenplay), Oscar Micheaux (story "Mandy")
Produced by Oscar Micheaux
Starring Cora Green
Cinematography Lester Lang
Edited by Patricia Rooney
Distributed by Micheaux Film Corporation
Release date April 29, 1938
Running time 69 minutes
Country United States
Language English

NOTES
Green performs the Yiddish tune Bei Mir Bistu Shein for her star-making musical sequence.

Actress Dorothy Van Engle, who had a supporting role as an assistant producer, is credited for inventing a key scene in Swing!, where her character and Mandy are sewing together. Van Engle, who was also a seamstress, created her own clothing for the film.

Elvera Sanchez Davis, the mother of entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., had a small role in Swing! as a tap dancer.

Swing!, which is a public domain title, has been frequently shown in film festivals and retrospective series celebrating the creative output of Oscar Micheaux, a pioneering African-American filmmaker,[5] and it has also been broadcast on U.S. television in programming devoted to the history of African-American cinema.