BAC Screens Three Great Louis Armstrong Films

The Louis Armstrong Festival continues at the Beverly Arts Center, highlighting the great jazz trumpeter’s gifts as an actor.

With a face and charm that cameras loved, Louis appeared in more than 20 feature motion pictures. Due to the racism of the motion picture industry, Louis and other black musicians were limited to walk on roles -- appear on screen, play a special musical number and get off the screen -- according to an excerpt from Armstrong’s filmography.

This was so the scenes featuring black performers could be edited out of the movies when they played in the American South without disturbing the the continuity of the story. “Ironically, many of these motion pictures are today remembered chiefly for Louis’s appearances,” the filmography continues.

BACinema presents two Louis Armstrong films -- “High Society” and “Cabin in the Sky” -- as they were meant to be seen on the big screen. The Louis Armstrong Film Festival also includes a rare showing of the 1957 Edward R. Murrow documentary “Satchmo the Great,” on loan from the Louis Armstrong archives.

Tickets to each film are $9.50, $7.50 for BAC members. Purchase tickets online at BACinema.

Wednesday, Feb. 3, 7:30 p.m. -- High Society

High Society (1956) is a glossy Technicolor-and-VistaVision musical remake of Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), decked out with million-watt star power and a Cole Porter score. Set amongst the rich and famous in Newport, RI, the story revolves around the wedding plans of socialite Tracy Lord (Grace Kelly). Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra also star in this lighthearted romp. “How can you not get a kick out of a movie featuring the always enthusiastic Louis Armstrong and his band jazzing things up?” -Kevin N. Laforest, Montreal Film Journal.

Friday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m. -- Cabin in the Sky

Directed by Vincent Minnelli. A morality fable with an all black, celebrity cast, starring Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Ethel Waters, and Lena Horne. Louis plays a “devil’s helper.” (Rex Ingram plays Lucifer, Jr and other devil’s helpers include Mantan Moreland and Willie Best.) Louis’s musical feature is “Ain’t It the Truth.”

Sunday, Feb. 7, 3 p.m. -- Satchmo the Great

View a special documentary loaned from the Armstrong archives. Satchmo the Great, made by Edward R. Murrow, is a 1957 biography film of the jazz-great. He and his band tour the world as American good-will ambassadors bringing jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music. One of the outstanding scenes in this biography/docudrama shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy’s immortal “St. Louis Blues.” Screenwriter: Edward R. Murrow.

The Beverly Arts Center is located at 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago.