Amos ‘N’ Andy: Check and Double Check [DVD]

Description

Released in 1930, Check And Double Check brought the country’s highest-rated radio program (and the first true sitcom), Amos and Andy, to the big screen. Producers felt audiences would accept no substitutes, so the actors who created and played the black characters on radio, Freeman Gosden and Charles W. Correll, star in the film. Posters read: “Here They Are… On the Screen… In Their First All-Talking Motion Picture.” The only hitch was, they were white.

The film follows the blackfaced Amos Brown and Andy Jones, owners of the Fresh Air Taxicab Company, as they become involved in the romance of a wealthy white couple. The plot works in much of the pairs trademark banter, a haunted house sequence and an early appearance by the great Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Band, who perform several numbers. RKO-Radio Pictures knew the film had a built-in audience and funded radio broadcasts from Hollywood to keep Amos n Andy on the air during production. It all paid off. Check And Double Check was the studios biggest hit of the season. And today, its our only look at the radio pioneers who created Amos and Andy.