Jukeboxes might not be as popular today as they were in the ’50s, but it’s still possible to come across one in a bar. Panorams haven’t been so lucky. Thanks to Kino Lorber and the Library of Congress, however, the Soundies that those Panorams used to play can now be seen on Blu-ray in Soundies: The Ultimate Collection.
What were “Soundies?” Essentially they were the music videos of the 40s which would play on special “video jukeboxes” called Panorams, but what that definition leaves out are all of the artists that can be found on those Soundies. In some cases, like Lynn Albritton, their Soundies may be the only footage that exists of them performing. For a better understanding of what makes Soundies such an integral record of life in the ’40s, check out this interview with series curator and author, Susan Delson:
Rachel Bellwoar: In your essay for the booklet that comes with the set you mention that production of Panorams had to stop in 1942 due to the war effort. Are there many functional Panorams still around today?
Susan Delson: Panorams are a known item on the collectors’ circuit, but if we’re talking about functional machines, I’d be surprised if there were more than 100 around today. The jazz-on-film historian and archivist Mark Cantor, who’s a contributor on the Kino Lorber project, has a working Panoram in his living room. His interviews are wonderful extras on the DVDs, and in one of them he runs a Soundie on his machine, giving us an inside look at how the Panoram actually works.
Bellwoar: In terms of how much freedom you had while curating this box set, was there a set number of discs this collection could be or did four come about naturally?
Delson: I was given a pretty free hand in developing the themes and programs, with input from the project’s producer, Bret Wood, Kino Lorber’s senior VP and producer of archival releases. We both wanted the set to be as wide-ranging and comprehensive as possible, and it was exciting to see how many themes the films could lend themselves to. The concept of four discs emerged pretty quickly.
Back in the 1940s, Soundies were generally released in weekly reels of eight films, so we decided to stick with that format, with six programs on each disc.
Bellwoar: What were some of the biggest challenges to organizing these Soundies into categories?
Delson: When I started curating the set, I had already written my book, Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time. I’d done years of research, including watching Soundies of every description. So I was already thoroughly immersed in the era and had a good idea of the themes I wanted to explore.
My first programming breakthrough was the idea that each disc should have its own theme, with the programs on that disc exploring different aspects of the theme. Four broad themes came to mind almost immediately, and that’s what we ended up going with.
Disc 1, “Introducing Soundies,” spotlights Soundies’ strengths as a genre, like big-band music, dance of all kinds, solo pianists, and—naturally—songs about drinking. “Life in the Soundies Era” looks at the films’ take on everything from military service to wartime rationing, city life and fashion. The third disc, “Musical Evolutions,” zeros in on the different types of pop music that Soundies showcased (including very early rock ’n roll), and the ways those musical genres sometimes mixed. “Women, Sexuality, and Gender” focuses on Soundies’ loose and playful approaches to those topics.
As I started pulling together the programs, I had another idea: to use the last program on each reel to re-create an eight-film reel exactly as it was released by the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America in the 1940s. I wanted to give viewers an idea of what the Soundies Corporation itself thought a good, well-rounded program looked like.
As we were heading into the home stretch, Bret suggested that I do one last program, to bring the total numbers to 25 programs and 200 films. By that point I was already starting to think about the terrific Soundies that had not made it into this set, either because they didn’t fit a theme or for other reasons. So I was thrilled to do that extra program—“Celebrating the Chorus Line”—which allowed us to include Soundies like Everybody’s Jumpin’ Now, with Noble Sissle and Mabel Lee. That program is at the end of the fourth disc, and it’s definitely worth catching.
Bellwoar: Unlike Hollywood movies in the 40’s, Soundies were a lot less subject to censorship. What are some of your favorites Soundies or acts that would’ve never made it past the production code?
Delson: Oh, disc 4—let’s start there. In the third program, “Playing with Expectations,” at least three of the films were censored in Pennsylvania, and probably in other states too: Vanita Smythe in Does You Do or Does You Don’t, Gracie Barrie in I’ve Got to Get Hot, and Luba Malina in Minnie From Trinidad. I love them all. In Program 4, “Jumping into Gender Play,” I’ll single out Faust. Day, Dawn, and Dusk (Robert Caver, Ed Coleman, and Augustus “Gus” Simons) are a real discovery. And Ed Coleman wears that dress with such flair.
If you think about it, there are many Soundies that would have never made it past the Hays Office, the film industry’s Production Code watchdog. It wasn’t just sexual content that set off the alarm bells. The Hays Office was known for rigorously enforcing the “color line,” and even the slightest suggestion of miscegenation was a red flag—remember Fredi Washington being forced to wear dark makeup for her role in The Emperor Jones?
Many Black-cast Soundies include light-complexioned performers, especially women dancers and background players, and that might have caused problems in a Production Code context—let alone the idea of strong and confident Black women expressing their sexuality. Vanita Smythe’s Soundies were routinely censored in a few key states, and so were several of Dorothy Dandridge’s.
Bellwoar: Today people take for granted that they can pick and choose any song they want, and don’t have to sit through all the songs they don’t like, but was it as much of a sticking point at the time, to have to sit through the whole eight film reel to get to your favorite Soundie, or was rewatching just not the expectation or affordable thing to do?
Delson: Well, Panorams were known as “movie jukeboxes,” and people did think of them as jukeboxes. The idea was that, just as you’d want to hear a favorite song over and over on a juke, you’d want to see and hear a favorite Soundie again on a Panoram. And hopefully, you’d have more than one favorite on that week’s reel — that’s certainly what the Soundies Corporation was aiming for.
And most likely you weren’t the only one feeding dimes into the Panoram. During the war, people flocked into defense-industry cities, housing was tight, and the work hours could be brutal. Bars and cafes were like communal living rooms, with their own crowds of regulars—people knocking off work and ready to relax. Remember, there was no TV back then, no digital media. The performers you heard on the radio and jukebox, you almost never saw on screen—except in Soundies. If you think of it that way, Soundies were terrific entertainment, even if the film that came up next wasn’t a favorite.
Bellwoar: The talent featured in this collection is truly out of this world, and while some of the names (like Dorothy Dandridge and Nat King Cole) will be familiar, the real travesty is how many of these artists (like the Kim Loo Sisters and Gracie Barrie) aren’t more well-known. Who are you most excited to see people discover?
Delson: Well, you hit on two of them right off the bat. The Kim Loo Sisters are one of the tightest female vocal harmony groups this side of the Andrews Sisters. They made only two Soundies, and we have them both.
Gracie Barrie is another discovery. She’s so artful at playing with audience expectations in I’ve Got to Get Hot, and she finds the sly humor in Stone Cold Dead in the Market—not easy when you’re singing about domestic abuse, especially in the 1940s.
I also love the De Castro Sisters, a Cuban-born vocal harmony group—so good and so glam. And the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, one of the hottest all-woman big bands of the era, in She’s Crazy with the Heat. The stand-up proto-rocker Maurice Rocco—appropriately named, as my colleague Ina Archer points out in her on-camera intro. And as I mentioned, Day, Dawn, and Dusk. So smart and sophisticated. We have three of their Soundies, and each one is a gem.
Bellwoar: One of the fun parts about watching the dance Soundies is seeing how much choreography has changed. There doesn’t seem to be as much emphasis on dancers being synchronized and some can be seen trying to outshine each other. Can this also be attributed to how quickly Soundies were made?
Delson: Yes, I think that was part of it. Soundies had to be cranked out quickly and cheaply—eight films per week meant releasing (or re-releasing) over 400 a year. So there wasn’t a lot of rehearsal time, for sure. But this was an era when everyone danced. Whether it was the fox trot, the jitterbug, or the rhumba, everyone hit the dance floor. Audiences paid attention to Soundies dancers and their moves, not only to enjoy them but to pick up some moves for themselves.
Bellwoar: Given that 1,880 Soundies were produced, one could reasonably hope for a second Soundies collection someday, but is that feasible or are a lot of the Soundies that remain lost or damaged?
Delson: If this set does well, I’d say a second collection is possible. The Library of Congress, our partner on this project, has what’s probably the largest institutional archive of Soundies, and I’m sure they’d be happy to see more of them back in the public eye.
Bellwoar: You’ve also written a book about Soundies — Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time. What is it that keeps drawing you back to the subject?
Delson: Taken as a whole, Soundies are an amazingly rich chronicle of American popular culture. There’s so much history embedded in these films, and it’s the type of history that rarely makes it into the written record.
Soundies give us a street-level take on the World War II years, framed in pop music and movies. They’re like a subconscious stream of what people were thinking back then, about everything from race relations to gender roles, and they speak frankly about the country’s fears and desires in ways that reverberate with us today.
They’re also a hidden chapter in American entertainment history. As you say, the range of talent in Soundies is amazing—not just the stars and future stars, but performers we may have never heard of, who are also immensely talented.
When I started researching Soundies, it quickly became clear that the films with Black performers were the first story to tell. Once the book was finished, the next step was finding a way to bring the full range of Soundies back into circulation. Now that Soundies: The Ultimate Collection has been released, we’ll see what comes next.
Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Susan!
Soundies: The Ultimate Collection is available on Blu-ray now from Kino Lorber.
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