Caldonia
About Caldonia
Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five are headed to Hollywood to make a picture. Producer Felix Paradise (Richard Huey) and Jordan's girlfriend Caldonia (Nicky O'Daniel) talk him into staying in Harlem and promise him a movie career there. The Harlem shoot is shut down. Jordan loses the Hollywood contract and loses Caldonia. Between the scenes the band plays "Caldonia," "Honey Child," "Tillie," and "Buzz Me."
Cast & crew
More about Caldonia
William Forest Crouch directed. John A. McGee wrote the screenplay. Berle Adams, Jordan's manager, produced it. Broadcast Music Incorporated financed the short. It was shot in New York in the winter of 1944 and released by Astor Pictures on 1 August 1945. Leonard Weiss edited it. The reported cost was $3,000.
Themes
Background
Jordan was at the height of his jukebox and soundie sales in 1945. The short frames four of those songs with a Harlem-versus-Hollywood story.
Making
BMI put up the money for a two-reel musical built around songs Jordan was already selling as soundies. Adams produced it in New York rather than on a Hollywood lot.
Music
Jordan and the Tympany Five perform "Caldonia," "Honey Child," "Tillie," and "Buzz Me."
Notes
- The four songs were also issued separately by the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America.
- The band on screen is Eddie Roane on trumpet, William Austin on piano, Al Morgan on bass, and Alex "Razz" Mitchell on drums, with Jordan on alto and tenor sax.
- Cab Calloway, Doc Cheatham, Milt Hinton, and Ben Webster are credited on some databases and do not appear.
- A poster for the film was one of five Vintage Black Cinema images on a U.S. postage stamp set in 2008.
- Sam "Spo-De-O-De" Theard, the dance team Taylor and Harris, and the Three Sun Tan Girls are in the cast.
Scenes
- Caldonia and Felix Paradise stop the band from leaving for Hollywood.
- The Harlem production collapses and Jordan is left without the contract or the girl.