Sally Gooding's first work was at age 16 in the 1932 revue \"Cotton Club Parade\" which starred Ethel Waters. Sally also performed with Cab Calloway in the '30s and was a regular with Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club where she made a hit song of superstition. In '37 she recorded with Teddy Wilson. Her best known track was \"It Must Be Love\" , Vocalion 4169, from 1937. She spent 1939 performing at the Plantation Club. At age 18, Sally starred in the musical shorts \"Hits of Today (1934) and this Vitaphone (also 1934), and in the feature film The Notorious Elinor Lee, 1940, directed by Oscar Michaeux. She continued to record between 1937 and '45 with Hot Lips Page, Pee Wee Russell, Chu Berry and Allan Reuss with many of her recordings not being released until the LP era. She died in 1952 in Brooklyn at only 36.
Frederika (Fredi) Washington was born in Savannah and was 13 years older than Sally in this film although she appeared much younger. Fredi was a film and stage actress of mixed race. She appeared in 6 movies, 4 shorts, and a few TV series. Although she had beautiful fair skin and gorgeous green eyes, she was a victim of racist Hollywood in the 1930s-60s era. Directors were afraid to cast her as white knowing she was of mixed race and she was too light skinned to be cast into feature length black films. Even in this short, note the comment made by the club owner at 1:15~~ \"well hello high yellow\" a common tag given to blacks of mixed race by other blacks. But people didn't take offense in the 1930s as easily as todays' snowflake generation.
The leader of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band in 1934 was a very young Lucky Millinder. The dancer in white tux was Blues McAlister and the club owner was Hamtree Harrington.
Underneath the Harlem Moon was played during the opening credits and Rhythm Spasm was played during the way to the penthouse.
Vitaphone 1586, released February 17, 1934, Mills Blue Rhythm Band. Sally Gooding sings \"There Goes My Headache\" composed by James P. Johnston and \"Love is the Thing\" composed by Victor Young with lyrics by Ned Washington.
After the \"high yellow\" comment in this film, don't even think about making a comment about 7:00 to 7:28 being racist without calling yourself a racist.
