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10 year-old Donnie (Stuffy Singer) is about the worst dancer ever, so
much so that before the dance of his dancing school he panics - and that
he's ditched by his date on the day of the dance doesn't make things any
better. Enter Beulah (Hattie McDaniel), his family's black maid, who
teaches him to dance and fixes him up with a girl - which is where things
start to go really wrong, because instead of the boring old waltz, Beulah
teaches Donnie the high-spirited Jitterbug, and the date she fixes him up
with is 16 years of age. This all falls on its head of course when Donnie
is scolded by his teacher (Anne O'Neal) for his barbaric dancing - but
fortunately, Donnie's mother (Jane Frazee) takes Donnie's and Beulah's
side, and while Donnie might no longer attend dancing school after that
incident, he has suddenly become mighty popular with the girls whom he
teaches the Jitterbug. Little more than an average sitcom at
the surface that features way too little Hattie McDaniel, whose delivery
is always spot on, and way too much of her rather bland family. The
interesting aspect about this episode though is that it, in a very playful
and family-friendly manner, features the clash of white and black culture,
with black culture winning in the end. Of course, it's wrong to read this
episode as a cultural manifesto, after all it's just another episode of a
1950's sitcom, but it's interesting for that undercurrent nevertheless.
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find Beulah - The Waltz at adultvideouniverse.com
