by Nick Taylor
Let's recap our tried-and-true methods of investigating what early cinema has to offer for these alternate looks at supporting actreses outside of the Oscar shortlists and we do these retrospectives.
1. Combing through the canon for actressy projects
2. Checking out what the great actresses of the era were up to.
But what about option 3... the ever-reliable, deeply specific journey of stumbling onto something interesting and keeping it in your back pocket until you finally get a reason (quote-unquote) to check it out? Take, for example, my relationship with Boy! What a Girl!, which I first heard about in my senior year of college...
Directed by Arthur H. Leonard and produced by the short-lived indie studio Harold Pictures, the film was mentioned in two separate classes as part of a wave of all-black-cast musical films released in the 1940’s. One professor liked it, while the other didn’t share an opinion on it. I looked it up on my own time, and though it sounded fun, I wasn’t compelled to seek it out until I learned the Smackdown was going to do 1947. (Riveting, I know.) But now I’ve watched it twice in the past two weeks, and I can’t believe I held off on seeing it for this long.
Betti Mays riffing
To give a quick plot summary: Boy! What a Girl! follows Harlem theater producers Jim and Harry (Elwood Smith and Duke Williams) trying to shore up funding for their newest musical act. They’ve secured half their funding from a Chicago-based financier named Mr. Cummings (Alan Jackson) who is bringing his two beautiful daughters Cristola and Francine (Betti Mays and Sheila Guyse) with him to finalize their contracts. The other half of the money is to be provided by the famous, glamorous impresario Madame Deborah (Sybil Lewis), travelling all the way from her Parisian enclave to see their act in person. But when Madame Deborah sends a letter saying she’s been unforeseeably delayed and will arrive several days later, the producers decide to enlist the troupe’s female impersonator Bumpsie (Tim Moore, future Kingfish on Amos ‘n Andy) to sub in for their missing guest so they can secure Mr. Cummings’ involvement.
As you can imagine, it goes great.
At only 70 minutes, Boy! What a Girl! cements itself as a quick, massively entertaining film from the moment it starts. The goofy, farcical plot is funny in itself but also a pretty amazing showcase for dozens of African American comedians, dancers, singers, and musicians to strut their stuff. Just about every single person we see is shown to great advantage. If there’s any categorical difference between what the male and female performers are doing, it’s that several of the men are more inclined to ham than any of the women. I’m absolutely not complaining, since everyone’s comic timing is so on point. But as the narrative adds more comic setpieces and would-be suitors for “Madame Deborah”, the relative calm of the women stands out, as they meet these increasingly wacky events with the same levels of composure and charisma they had at the start of the film rather than escalating in tune with the plot.
Boy! What a Girl! features performances from several prominent black musical artists of the 1940s. Beryl Booker is the pianist playing with the Slam Stewart trio. Mary Lou Williams, a composer who arranged several of Duke Ellington’s songs (including “Satchel Mouth Baby, which The Brown Dots perform very early in the film), gives a solo classical piano performance during the rooftop party. Ann Correll sings a gorgeous rendition of “I Just Won’t Sing the Blues” late into the film. There’s also the Harlemaniacs (a.k.a. The International Jitterbugs), whose knockout dance moves shine in the first rent party. Only Betti Mays, as the girlfriend of Elwood Smith’s producer, is given the opportunity to knock our socks off with a solo number and play a major character. Her chemistry with Smith is electrifying, and their romance is all the more moving for refusing any big gestures to convey their love. Mays is also a casually luminous figure in her own right, never more so than during her rendition of “Crazy Riffin’”. She kicks off the rooftop garden party that lasts the second half of Boy! What a Girl! with the best musical performance of the whole film, dancing with the band and singing exquisitely with a broad, infectious smile.
Ah, but what of the real Madame Deborah? It turns out the letter saying she’d be late was only sent so she could surprise everyone with an unexpected entrance 23 minutes into the film. The relaxed quality of the female ensemble is especially well-suited to Sybil Lewis, emblematic of her character’s refinement as well as her good natured, gamely amused attitude. She introduces herself to the landlord (Warren Patterson) as Ms. Martin, plain, everyday Martin. When she learns “Madame Deborah” has already rented a room in the apartment, she grins to herself and decides to play along, even stirring up some trouble of her own when she informs the landlord that Madame Deborah is so beset by suitors because she possesses oodles of money. Lewis also scores some of the film’s best jokes in her scenes with Bumpsie. She doesn’t aim for easy gags about being offended by the disguise - it’s not even clear if she recognizes her imposter is a man. Instead, she seems completely curious about this person and their conceptions of her, gossiping about the costs of their stockings and asking if she’s had any great love affairs. When Bumpsie pulls out a cigar and declares it a “Boulevard custom”, she runs with it and tries one herself, choking a bit on the smoke but otherwise delighted by this new experience and the person who shared it with her.
Madame Deborah spends much of the second half of the film helping to resolve the various conflicts between these characters, even getting a romance of her own in the process. Again, the wit and charm Lewis so casually emanates is key to her success here as she swoops into these strangers' lives and takes it upon herself to solve their problems whether she caused them or not. She’s also the most thoughtfully reactive presence in the film, actively listening to what her screen partners are saying and thinking about what she’s going to do next without pulling faces. She’s fully involved in each scene and the people she’s acting with, perhaps more so than anyone else in this gifted, calico crew. As of this moment, Sybil Lewis gives my favorite performance of Boy! What a Girl!, but ask me another day and it could be Betti Mays, or Warren Patterson, or Tim Moore. You could pick just about any performer as your favorite and it’d make perfect sense.
So, is this a good enough pitch for you? Are you dying to track down this film and see for yourself just how good it is?
Thankfully, a channel called The Riverbend Company posted the whole film on YouTube. (It's also free to stream for Amazon Prime members.) The sound and image quality are admittedly fuzzy on both sites, probably as much to do with some weathered damage over time as the likely cheap production values it had at the time it was made. But every joke, every expression, every line reading and dance move still lands like a dream. It's 70 minutes of pure joy, in a short-lived genre of American cinema that deserves all the attention it can get. What better way to honor the great films of 1947 than sitting down with something as lovely and rare as this?
P.S. If you can't wait for tomorrow's Smackdown here's my own take on the nominees and an alternate ballot.
Previously in our 1947 retrospective