Irwin Franklyn

Unusually elaborate for a PRC film, Minstrel Man is a lively musical drama built around the talents of veteran vaudevillian Benny Fields. The star is cast as Dixie Boy Johnson, who rises from the ranks of minstrel shows to become a top Broadway attraction. On the opening night of his greatest stage triumph, Dixie Boy's wife dies in childbirth. Profoundly shaken, he walks out of the show, leaving the baby to be raised by his showbiz pals Mae and Lasses White (Gladys George, Roscoe Karns). The kid grows up to be an attractive young woman named Caroline (Judy Clark), who follows in her dad's footsteps by billing herself as-that's right-Dixie Girl Johnson. This leads to a tearful reunion between Caroline and the father she'd long assumed to be dead. If Minstrel Man seems at times to be a dress rehearsal for Columbia's The Jolson Story (1946), it shouldn't surprising: the PRC film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, who went on to helm Jolson Story's musical highlights.

This one has Nylon, an American dancer fleeing Morocco after her employer gets into trouble with the police, and she stops off at Tangiers on her way to Gibraltar. $50,000, in gold, is stolen from the ship's safe and the captain tells the police that the purser was the thief and that he had to kill him in self defense, but the purser must have hidden the money before he got dead. The purser isn't in any position to make a disclaimer. Everybody buys that with the exception of an insurance detective, Shapley, who, along with the audience, suspects the captain of being the thief shows up to investigate further. Written By Les Adams

A Nazi spy passes himself off as an optometrist in San Francisco's waterfront district. Someone robs him of his code book, and he must get it back.

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson made his movie acting debut in this 1932 film, featuring Putney Dandridge, James Baskett (Oscar winner for "Song of the South"), Cotton Club dancer Anita Boyer, Henri Wassell, Alma Smith, Bob Sawyer, and composer/bandleader Eubie Blake and his orchestra.

A musical comedy drama of life behind the scenes in a Harlem movie studio.

Crime comedy.

Unusually elaborate for a PRC film, Minstrel Man is a lively musical drama built around the talents of veteran vaudevillian Benny Fields. The star is cast as Dixie Boy Johnson, who rises from the ranks of minstrel shows to become a top Broadway attraction. On the opening night of his greatest stage triumph, Dixie Boy's wife dies in childbirth. Profoundly shaken, he walks out of the show, leaving the baby to be raised by his showbiz pals Mae and Lasses White (Gladys George, Roscoe Karns). The kid grows up to be an attractive young woman named Caroline (Judy Clark), who follows in her dad's footsteps by billing herself as-that's right-Dixie Girl Johnson. This leads to a tearful reunion between Caroline and the father she'd long assumed to be dead. If Minstrel Man seems at times to be a dress rehearsal for Columbia's The Jolson Story (1946), it shouldn't surprising: the PRC film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, who went on to helm Jolson Story's musical highlights.

This one has Nylon, an American dancer fleeing Morocco after her employer gets into trouble with the police, and she stops off at Tangiers on her way to Gibraltar. $50,000, in gold, is stolen from the ship's safe and the captain tells the police that the purser was the thief and that he had to kill him in self defense, but the purser must have hidden the money before he got dead. The purser isn't in any position to make a disclaimer. Everybody buys that with the exception of an insurance detective, Shapley, who, along with the audience, suspects the captain of being the thief shows up to investigate further. Written By Les Adams

A Nazi spy passes himself off as an optometrist in San Francisco's waterfront district. Someone robs him of his code book, and he must get it back.

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson made his movie acting debut in this 1932 film, featuring Putney Dandridge, James Baskett (Oscar winner for "Song of the South"), Cotton Club dancer Anita Boyer, Henri Wassell, Alma Smith, Bob Sawyer, and composer/bandleader Eubie Blake and his orchestra.

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson made his movie acting debut in this 1932 film, featuring Putney Dandridge, James Baskett (Oscar winner for "Song of the South"), Cotton Club dancer Anita Boyer, Henri Wassell, Alma Smith, Bob Sawyer, and composer/bandleader Eubie Blake and his orchestra.

A musical comedy drama of life behind the scenes in a Harlem movie studio.

Crime comedy.

Crime comedy.