Swing!

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A 16mm release print of the feature film Swing!. It consists of two reels of positive, black-and-white, 16mm acetate film with variable-area optical sound. In the opening scene, the protagonist, Mandy Jenkins (Cora Green), is awakened by an alarm clock which reads 6 o’clock. Mandy snoozes the alarm and exclaims, “Oh, Lordy, why do they invent alarm clocks anyway,” before going back to sleep. She’s awakened a second time and as she dresses herself, her husband, Cornell (Larry Seymour), enters the bedroom. The rest of the film follows a love triangle between Mandy, who is a cook for a wealthy white family, her husband Cornell and his mistress Eloise (Hazel Diaz). The final scene shows Lena Powell (Dorothy Van Engle) threatening Cornell with physical harm if he breaks Mandy’s heart.

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