Forties Swing, Hollywood Flash

This chapter discusses the Hollywood musical films of the Nicholas Brothers under a five-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox that brought them to the highest level of notoriety as jazz tap dancers in the Swing era. In Down Argentine Way, despite the mere three-and-a-half-minute scene in which the Brothers appeared, audiences flocked to the theater to see them perform the title song. In Sun Valley Serenade, with Dorothy Dandridge, the Brothers’ Chattanooga Choo Choo number was the aural and visual embodiment of swing music. In Orchestra Wives, Harold performed a run-up-the-wall into a backward flip and split that had never before been seen on film. And in their spectacular Jumping Jive number in Stormy Weather, Fayard jumped down one step and landed in a split, Harold leap-frogged over Fayard and landed on the next step into another split, and the Brothers alternately jumped over each other until they reached the bottom of the stairs—a routine Fred Astaire said was the greatest he had ever seen on film.