Film
The Duke is Tops
- 10AM
A 21-year-old Lena Horne lights up her film debut, a vivacious jazz musical featuring an all-black cast. She plays the star attraction in a show produced by a small-time promoter (Cooper, founder and MC of the Apollo Theater’s famed Amateur Nights), who gets her big break—or so it seems—when she’s signed by a New York agent. The Duke Is Tops is, above all, a showcase for a number of the era’s most talented black entertainers, including the singing group Cats and the Fiddle and dancer Marie Bryant.