Stormy Weather

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Lena Horne top-line an all-star, all-Black cast in this tale of romance and music between the world wars. The slim plot, which is basically a few lines of exposition between musical numbers, recounts Robinson’s attempts to win Horne’s heart and make it big. When he succeeds, he asks her to quit her career and become a housewife—wait, who in his right mind would ask Lena Horne to do that? I bet they work everything out in a big musical number. The whopping sixteen numbers, including the title song, “Ain’t Misbehaving,” and “Diga Diga Do,” are performed by the cream of the crop of 1940s Black entertainers, including Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Ada Brown, Dooley Wilson, the Nicholas Brothers, and Katherine Dunham. Jazz fans, watch the bands for such luminaries as Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, and Benny Carter.