Cab Calloway And The Nicholas Brothers

Lately, Will and I have seen a few old Fred Astaire movies on the Classics channel. I know that the movies were mainly to showcase his dancing, because frankly, the writing was shit as was his acting. He was a terrific dancer and a terrible actor. As a matter of fact, he usually played characters that I wanted to punch right in the fucking face. Most of them were such smuggers (that's a cross between smug and fucker - I just made it up now, I'm on a "cross" kick. Please feel free to spread its use widely).

Something that really struck me though, were the servant roles of the black characters in the movies. I was shocked. I'm not naive, I know our history, I just haven't "seen" it in a while and I was sitting there mouth agape, thinking this was just 60 years ago. That's not very long. And although we've come a long way, baby, we still have a long way to go. But, I do believe that we are getting somewhere. "Where?" You ask? I don't know, but it is somewhere.

In any case, there's two brothers that I'm certain never received the acknowledgment that they truly deserved. I've heard that Fred Astaire greatly admired them and he should have. I've also read where during that time (1930's & 40's), other black entertainers scenes would be cut to accommodate the racism of the day, but the studios demanded that no changes would be made to any of the material of the Nicholas Brothers. These two could dance ANYONE under the carpet (or is it table? I don't know...where do you dance someone under? The stage?), then AND now. You really have to watch the entire video to appreciate their talents...and their limberness.

Long live their memory!