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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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February 25, 2007
Childhood Sammy Davis Jr Images and Movie Download
I've recently discovered a totally fascinating cultural artifact that I want to share with you, a 21 minute two-reel theatrical short from 1933 called Rufus Jones for President. It's a fine little spectacle of a musical with an all-black cast, starring Ethel Waters as a young mother who has a dream about her young son becoming president.
 Thus, the first black president turns out to have been seven year old Sammy Davis Jr. I've probably watched this 20 times, and the first exchange where Mammy speculates about her boy becoming president gets funnier every time, "The book says anybody born here can be president." But the real punch line is the innocent response of wonder from little Rufus sitting on her lap, "Ain't that somethin'?" 
For starters, this movie is some rare prime footage of the great Ethel Waters in action, singing her hit "Am I Blue?" and a particularly interesting souped-up version of "Underneath a Harlem Moon." Ethel was to die for.
Best of all though is young seven year old Sammy Davis Jr in top hat and coat hoofin' his little heart out. I'm especially tickled with his immediate reaction to his election. Pressed to come to the microphone and say something to his constituents, he eyes the the mic for a second - and then breaks into "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You." I'm tellin' ya, the great child actor of all time Shirley Temple herself was never cuter or more charming.
However (sigh), of course this film is unutterably, horribly "racist," as you'll find if you read, say, user comments on this at IMDB or Amazon. Primarily, that's based on lots of jokes about stealing chickens and carrying razors and such. Personally, I'm inclined to think that people are having trouble seeing through the poisonous racial crud on their own windshields to see what's actually on the screen. I see nothing but love. Here's where I break it down:
But hey, don't take my word for it. Download the movie and judge for yourself. I predict that you'll either be gettin' off on a great little musical, or gettin' off on being offended. Whichever gets you off best, have at.
I've captured and captioned some 300+ numerically sequenced images from the film. If you saved them to a local folder, they'd make a groovy slide show/screen saver.
Rufus Jones for President Images 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65
America's first black president? Eat you heart out, Barack Obama!
posted by Al at 2/25/2007 01:33:00 PM
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