St. Louis Blues with Bessie Smith (1929)

In 1929, Kenneth W. Adams and W. C. Handy wrote a short film treatment based on Handy s famous song St. Louis Blues and convinced the film studio RCA Phototone of the idea of making a short film. Phototone hired Dudley Murphy (director of the 1924 French avante garde classic Le Ballet Mechanique ) to direct a tworeel short to be shown before the featured attraction, much the same way newsreels and cartoons were throw in as an added attraction before films in those days. At W. C. Handy s suggestion, Bessie br, br,