Baby Don't Go Away from Me

Mable Lee sings the title song to Stepin Fetchit while he fumbles with his money.

Soundies were short films, about three minutes in length. The were meant to be played on a machine called a Mills Panoram, a video jukebox that was typically to be found in bars, lounges, and similar venues. You put a dime in and got a performance from the ten on the machine. The movies would be changed weekly, and from 1940 through 1946, Mills and other companies produced more than two thousand soundies.

Fetchit (real name: Lincoln Perry) played a stereotypically slow, stupid, mumbling Black man during the 1930s and 1940. By the 1960s, he was, of course, way out of favor. Even so, I find his comedy to be incomprehensible at best. Why anyone would hire him to ruin a good torch song like this one is beyond me.