Duke Ellington Movies

A journey into the BBC archives unearthing glorious performances and candid interviews from the golden age of jazz. Featuring some of the greatest...

Betty and Bimbo, as Queen and King of the May, host a giant outdoor party that gets sprayed with rubber. Koko appears briefly.

Duke Ellington and his orchestra play two jazz compositions plus 'Stormy Weather' (sung by Ivy Anderson).

Duke Ellington plays hot jazz in a fictional story that finds him down on his luck; he tries in vain to dissuade his friend, dancer Fredi Washington,...

In this concert from his great European tour Duke gives a big band concert to be remembered in Brussel’s Marni Theatre. Featuring star soloists...

Beverly Ross, the switchboard operator at a local radio station, jumps at the chance to be the DJ for an early morning show before the soldiers at a...

Improvisational jazz performance filmed in 1950 by Gjon Mili plus Duke Ellington Trio filmed in July 1966, Count Basie at the Montreux Jazz Festival...

Restored film directed by Will Cowan in 1943

Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier travel down memory lane to see what life was like back in the 1920s. Harry Belafonte introduces this musical,...

A white man's brain is transplanted into a black man's skull.

Restored Film released in 1943, directed by Jay Bonafield

Kåre has a bank on wheels. He lives for the Bank bus and its customers, but soon it is over. A story of human presence in stark contrast to...

Agent Pete Garland is fired by society singer Monica Barrett after he got her a new radio contract, because she thinks her lawyer friend Teddy Leeds...

Gracie Allen assumes the "management" of the shop owned by her papa Horatio Allen, turning it into a radio station and then an aviary---with the...

A made-for-TV musical revue, compiled from soundies and film and TV performances by jazz greats from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Chronicling the Harlem Renaissance era, this retrospective documentary tracks the origins of the soulful music of the period, along with the...

After a look at some strange creatures, the narrator and camera take us to the Chaco forest, on the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where...

Short directed by Will Cowan as tribute to Duke Ellington

Nutcracker Sweeties is Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington’s big band take on the Tchaikovsky classic—The Nutcracker as you've never seen...