Stormy Weather

Various Artists

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A Glittering Example of Show Business

The plot's pretty lean, but the lineup of musical talent involved in this bigbudget 1943 picture more than compensates. By the time Cab Calloway, as his hi-dee-ho hipster self, kicks off the variety show that becomes the film's opulent finale, we've already heard Fats Waller romp through "Ain't Misbehavin'," Lena Horne sing "Stormy Weather," and a duet between Horne and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson on "I Can't Give You Anything but Love."

A song-and-dance extravaganza featuring an all–African American cast, Stormy Weather hails from a time when the music really carried a musical. True, not every song is as memorable as Horne's signature "Stormy Weather," the Harold Arlen–Ted Koehler classic that appears near the end of the film. Horne treats the tune as a moody lament; she observes that since her man left, it "keeps raining all the time," her phrases registering as a series of inconsolable aches. Horne's performance here ranks easily among the most memorable interpretations of an American standard. But everything moves with showbiz zip, and there are times when some of the lesser-known singers— like Mae Johnson, who does "I Lost My Sugar in Salt Lake City"—strut right in and surprise everybody. Heck, Horne surprises too, hamming like a blithe showgirl on the jungle-tinged novelty "Diga Diga Doo." And watch out when the Calloway band gets involved. The second half of the soundtrack offers several band showcases—"Jumpin' Jive," a sizable Calloway hit, is rendered as if the band were doing it for the first time, and there's a treatment of "Body and Soul" that shows that the rhythm didn't always have to be redhot for this band to be great.

Genre: Vocals
Released: 1943, Twentieth Century Fox
Key Tracks: "Stormy Weather," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Jumpin' Jive"
Next Stop: Lena Horne: At the Sands
After That: Cab Calloway: Are You Hep to the Jive?
Book Pages: 822–823

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