Movies aimed at black audiences in the 1940s often had white producers and directors, though the casts were black. But this one was directed by and co-stars the gifted Spencer Williams, who would in a few years become a national tv star as Andy on "Amos n Andy." Like other black-targeted films of the era, this one's super-low-budget (the sets look like cardboard), with a simplistic story (nice country girl with a good voice comes to NYC and falls in with city slickers), an almost surreally pieced-together musical score, and few professional actors besides Williams himself, who's very good as a kindly cabbie who looks after the girl. And, like a lot of black films from the era, it somehow triumphs over those shortcomings, and is a charmer. Sadly, the DVD version I've seen was made from a print badly mauled by time, with an audio track that's sometimes indecipherable.
Review of The Girl in Room 20
