Dirty Gertie drinks, flirts heavily, and takes expensive jewelry from men. She's the heroine of the movie, but she's tarnished, and her doom is foreshadowed many times. The movie has the structure of many black musical films, leading up to a big revue in a nightclub at the end, but those expectations are frustrated. The revue consists only of the dancing of the chorus line, credited as "6 Harlem beauties," and a short dance number by July Jones and Howard Galloway.
Even more frustrating is that Francine Everett, though she was known as a singer and dancer, doesn't sing at all in the movie. She dances only a few steps early in the plot, and in the nightclub revue she only sways a bit as she removes her over-the-elbow gloves at the start of a sadly interrupted striptease.
The oddest thing in the movie, however, is director's Spencer Williams' casting of himself in a cameo role as "Old Hagar," the crystal-globe-reading fortune teller. Williams plays the role in drag, dressed in a house dress and head wrap, but he wears his mustache and speaks in a deep, masculine voice. He doesn't play it for comedy, yet it's hard to say he's playing it straight. Did Williams just step in for an actress who didn't show up for filming that day (that's the sort of thing that happened in making very low budget black movies), or is the explanation something stranger?
Even more frustrating is that Francine Everett, though she was known as a singer and dancer, doesn't sing at all in the movie. She dances only a few steps early in the plot, and in the nightclub revue she only sways a bit as she removes her over-the-elbow gloves at the start of a sadly interrupted striptease.
The oddest thing in the movie, however, is director's Spencer Williams' casting of himself in a cameo role as "Old Hagar," the crystal-globe-reading fortune teller. Williams plays the role in drag, dressed in a house dress and head wrap, but he wears his mustache and speaks in a deep, masculine voice. He doesn't play it for comedy, yet it's hard to say he's playing it straight. Did Williams just step in for an actress who didn't show up for filming that day (that's the sort of thing that happened in making very low budget black movies), or is the explanation something stranger?