Boarding House Blues

Boarding House Blues is a 1948 American musical race film directed by Josh Binney^[1][2][3] which featured the first starring film role by Moms Mabley. It was the penultimate feature film of All-American News, a company that made newsreels about black Americans.^[4][5]

Boarding House Blues
Original film poster
Directed by	Josh Binney
Written by	Hal Seeger (writer)
Produced by	E.M. Glucksman (producer)
Starring	See below
Cinematography	Sydney Zucker
Production company	All-American News
Release date	1948 (1948)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Premise

Mom (Moms Mabley) runs a boarding house for struggling entertainers,^[6][7] similar to the situation decades earlier when Mabley had lived in a boarding house for black entertainers in Buffalo, New York.^[8]

When the boarding house is threatened with closure and all the tenants evicted due to non-payments, everyone gets together to put on a show to raise the money needed to save Mom and their home.^[9] The plot functions as a showcase^[8] for performance and comedy sketches and in the end enough money is raised to fend off the landlord.^[6]

Legacy

The film was the first starring role for Mabley and showcased her "vaudeville-circuit comedy and captured her signature stances and expressions."^[10] The film was also one of the early iterations of Mabley's "Moms" persona.^[11]

In 1994, the National Film Theatre in London featured the film in their "A Separate Cinema" season, which focused on the pioneers of black cinema in the United States.^[12] The film was cited as an example of "subversive" low budget black cinema in the 1940s.^[12]

In 2022, the American Film Institute showed the film as part of the institute's "NYC's Postwar Film Renaissance" series.^[13]

Cast

• Moms Mabley as Moms^[14]
• Dusty Fletcher as Dusty^[15]
• Marcellus Wilson as Jerry
• Marie Cooke as Lila Foster
• Augustus Smith as Norman Norman
• John D. Lee Jr. as Stanley
• Emory Richardson as Simon
• Harold Cromer as Moofty
• Sidney Easton as Boo Boo
• Freddie Robinson as Freddie
• John 'Spider Bruce' Mason as Boarders (with "company")
• John Riano as Steggy (the ape)
• Lucky Millinder as himself (bandleader)^[15]
• Una Mae Carlisle as herself (singer)^[15]
• Bull Moose Jackson as himself (singer)^[15]
• Warren Berry as One of Berry Brothers
• Nyas Berry as One of Berry Brothers
• Anistine Allen as herself (singer)
• Paul Breckenridge as himself (singer)
• James Cross as Stump of Stump and Stumpy
• Eddie Hartman as Stumpy of Stump and Stumpy
• Lee Norman as themselves
• 'Crip' Heard as himself (one-legged dancer)
• Edgar Martin as Joe

Soundtrack

• John Mason and Company – "Gimme"
• The Berry Brothers – "You'll Never Know" (Written by Harry Warren, lyrics by Mack Gordon)
• Una Mae Carlisle – "Throw It out of Your Mind" (Written by Louis Armstrong and Billy Kyle)
• Una Mae Carlisle – "It Ain't Like That" (Written by Hot Lips Page)
• Stump and Stumpy^[15] – "We've Got Rhythm to Spare"
• Paul Breckenridge with Lucky Millinder band "We Slumber"
• Anistine Allen with Lucky Millinder band – "Let It Roll"
• Bull Moose Jackson with Lucky Millinder band – "Yes I Do"