best musicals

How ridiculous is the amount of talent in Stormy Weather (1943)?

You’ve got Fats Waller and Ada Brown performing “That Ain’t Right,” a scene that obviously inspired Aretha Franklin’s “Think” in The Blues Brothers (1980).

My favorite lines in a hilarious call and response song about his greed for her money are Ada’s: “I took you to a nightclub. I bought you pink champagne. You rode home in a taxi while I caught that subway train, that ain’t right.” His responses include admissions that she’s correct; he does just want her money.

And as if that weren’t enough of a cameo, jazz legend Waller follows it up with a rousing “Ain’t Misbehavin.'”

The movie stars the dazzling Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, perhaps best known now for his tap sequences with Shirley Temple. Lena Horne costars. Her performance of “Stormy Weather” is only slightly lovelier than her duet with Robinson of “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love.” She’s at the top of her game, and he’s in the late stages of his career, but his magnetism and skill are still impossible to ignore.

And then there’s the dance sequence during “Stormy Weather” by Katherine Dunham and her troop, which is both mesmerizing and marked by a degree of smoking sensuality I can’t believe made it past the censors. (Seriously, how did anyone miss those gyrations?)

Cab Calloway is his usual charismatic, velvet-voiced self, especially in the exhilarating “The Jumpin’ Jive” (years before he’d charm Gen Xers with the rendition of his hit “Minnie the Moocher” in The Blues Brothers).

And then of course, we have the coup de grâce during “The Jumpin’ Jive”: the Nicholas brothers’ awe-inducing dance number, which Fred Astaire called the best dance performance on film.

Fayard and Harold Nicholas would wow such luminaries as George Balanchine, Gene Kelly, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Their students would include Michael and Janet Jackson. (If you get a chance, watch fan Gregory Hines’s befuddled description of their impossible dance sequence in Stormy Weather. You can understand. Can two humans DO that???)

Sadly, it’s easy to guess why Stormy Weather is so chockfull of those at the top of their field: there were so few leading roles for black musicians, actors, and dancers in the 1940s. You can imagine why casting directors would stack that film and the other 1943 all-black musical, Cabin in the Sky, with all the big names they could get.

But that knowledge doesn’t stop you from experiencing shock the whole way through: At the flood of famous people you’ve heard of showing up on the screen. At music and performances that are far too good for a Hollywood musical. And by dancing that would have you in tears if you weren’t so busy smiling. The Nicholas brothers’ breathtaking grace and athleticism are nothing short of miraculous. And watching geniuses fully enjoy their art with that level of exuberance?

Try not to rewind and watch it again.