Hi De Ho / The Duke is Tops

Limited Edition Double Feature

A Double-Dose Of Jumpin' Jive!
Paired together for the first time, these two features take advantage of the performing talents of Lena Horne and Cab Calloway plus great songs and swinging bands!

"Hi De Ho"
Cab Calloway stars as a band leader pressured to leave his new gig at The Brass Hat Club to work for a gangster-run establishment across the street.Caught between two women, he dumps his girlfriend Minnie (Jeni Le Gon) because of her jealousy over his manager, Nettie (Ida James).Minnie approached Boss Mason (George Wiltshire) to help get Cab to work at Mason's rival nightclub.Rebuffed, Mason sends his strongman to persuade Cab, with violence if necessary, to reconsider.Cab overpowers the gunman, but in the ensuing struggle, Minnie and Boss Mason are killed.The grand finale features a host of swing numbers, dancing acts and great songs including an over-the-top version of "St. James Infirmary"by Cab and a "Swing Time Wedding" to Nettie in the nightclub!

The Duke Is Tops
Ethel Andrews (Lena Horne) is a featured singer known as The Bronze Nightingale in "The Sepia Scandals", a traveling black review produced by her boyfriend, Duke Davis (Ralph Cooper).After a serious inquiry from a big-time agent, Duke believes he is holding Ethel back from stardom and he tricks her into leaving him and trying a solo act in New York.The Duke, after a failed attempt to revive the show, links up with a con-man in a traveling medicine show and for a while, works small towns helping sell a medicinal elixir.When he hears that Ethel is not succeeding as a headliner, he rushes to her side to help.They head back to the South where he writes and produces a new show based around her sultry ballads and other specialty singing and dancing acts.