Stepin Fetchit

The video "That's Black Entertainment" is an introduction to a lost parallel universe to Hollywood, that of the all-black American movie, made between 1910 and the 1950s. Theatres were segregated -- and the one good that came of this was an era of fascinating film, because blacks made cinema for their own communities. We're talking short musicals and full-length dramas produced on such tiny budgets that one astounding actor continued to sob at the death of a woman, yea though the corpse did open her eyes.

Much of the footage from the era has been lost, but this hour-long doc from 1985 has dug up a handful of surviving clips.

Directed and narrated by William Greaves, this is well worth a rental. The flick also situates blacks in Hollywood -- they were allowed to play bug-eyed morons. Or a few were. Most black roles were played by whites. Bing Crosby in black face is... well, it just is.

Some blacks made a career of bug-eyed roles. Thus the debate: is a black playing a fool opposite a white an embarrassment to his people, or is he actually making fun of the white man for being so gullible as to be taken in by the act?

By the time Nichelle Nichols got to "Porgy and Bess" (in 1959), white director Otto Preminger was called on his bad on-set behaviour, coupled with a particularly nauseating script: "Dahlin', I know you ain't stupid, and I know you know what respect is," Pearl Bailey announced (as quoted in Nichols' 1994 autobiography "Beyond Uhura"). "But just in case, I'll tell you. You can start with this damned script. It's written by some silly ass white boy who's trying to write coloured. It's insulting. First, he's written all these 'dees' and 'dems' and 'dose' and 'Ises' and 'weeses' and 'beeses.' Well, we've tried to act this dumb crap, but it's all ridiculous. Besides," she added, chuckling, "they're in all the wrong places! ...

"We don't need no white boy tellin' us how to be collud, suh!"