This all black film was Lena Horne's screen debut. Made for black audiences, it was re-released after the cross-over success of her two great 1943 films, Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. The Duke Is Tops is a typical film about stage performers, and it is certainly a B movie. Duke Davis (Ralph Cooper) and Ethel Andrews (Horne) are a songwriter/singer team. When Ethel gets bigger offers, Duke can't come with, so he breaks it off hard with her so she'll have no regrets. He travels to the South with an old friend who is selling cure-all elixirs from his wagon; meanwhile, without Duke's behind-the-scenes work, Ethel is a flop in New York. It's all fairly mediocre. Horne would become a much better actress in her later films. Fans of the singer will probably be disappointed anyways, as she is only in the film for about 15 minutes. Cooper is the star. But there are several wonderful musical performances that make the film much more worth watching than it otherwise would have been. For a much better film of the same time, definitely check out Stormy Weather, which is probably the pinnacle of the all-black films of this era. 6/10.
Review of The Duke Is Tops
