Juke Joint

Hitchhiking con men Bad News Johnson (Spencer Williams) and July Jones roll into a small Kansas town with twenty-five cents between them. Posing as Hollywood acting coaches, they set up shop in Mama Lou Holiday's boarding house and promise to turn her daughter Honey Dew into a beauty-contest winner, while the juke joint next door pulls the whole family toward trouble. Williams — later TV's Andy Brown on Amos 'n' Andy — wrote, directed, and starred in this all-Black-cast comedy for Dallas-based Sack Amusement Enterprises, and it's a prime example of the "race films" made for Black theaters in the 1940s. The film is in the public domain.