🎬 Watched King of Jazz (1930) after reading about it in Peter Doggett’s book Electric Shock on the history of pop music. It’s a bizarre, compelling time capsule, made up of a montage of songs, dances and not particularly amusing sketches. A Letterboxd reviewer nails the problems with the movie that are outlined in the book, that it is a cultural appropriation of ‘jazz’ without any acknowledgement or representation of the black African Americans from whom it originated.

I came for the performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, but stayed for the incredible My Ragamuffin Romeo dance between Marion Stadler and Don Rose.

The whole movie can be found on YouTube.