Up Jumped the Devil
Cast & Crew
Mantan Moreland
Shelton Brooks
Maceo Sheffield
Earl Morris
Lawrence Criner
Myrtle Fortune
Film Details
Synopsis
Recent parolees Jefferson and Washington are desperate to find jobs so that they will not be picked up for vagrancy. When they see that the wealthy Mrs. Wendell Brown is hiring a butler and a maid, Jefferson convinces Washington to dress up as a woman and take the maid's job while he performs the duties of the butler. Washington is reluctant and uncooperative, but finally agrees to keep his dress on, as the alternative is to run around nude. As Jefferson and Washington hitchhike to Mrs. Brown's, where they are to work at her "Aid to Abyssinia" bazaar, they are picked up by Bad News Johnson, a crook whom they met in jail. Bad News offers to let the two in on a scam he is planning to put over on Mrs. Brown, but they decline, saying that they have had enough of prison life. At the bazaar, the male guests flirt with Washington, while Bad News, dressed as "Swamee Reever," a soothsayer, pretends to read the women's fortunes as he is stealing their jewels. Washington, who is an unregenerate dice shooter, gets in a game of craps and wins the men's fancy clothes with his "crooked dice." Now dressed as a man, Washington observes Bad News telling Mrs. Brown's fortune and then stealing her pearl necklace. Bad News threatens Washington if he tells anyone about the theft, and when Mrs. Brown's husband searches both men to no avail, Washington keeps quiet. Jefferson shows Washington where the necklace has been hidden, and the two steal it and then refuse to return it to the angry Bad News until the police arrive and catch him red-handed.
Cast
Mantan Moreland
Shelton Brooks
Maceo Sheffield
Earl Morris
Lawrence Criner
Myrtle Fortune
Patsy Hunter
Millie Monroe
Suzette Harbin
Avanelle Harris
Doris Akes
Crew
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Although a print of this film was not viewed, the above plot was taken from a dialogue continuity deposited with the NYSA. Some character names were deduced from photographs and descriptions within the cutting continuity. Exact release date information was not found, but according to a NY Amsterdam News news item, the film was ready for distribution on the East Coast as of August 30, 1941. NYSA records indicate that by the time the film was submitted for censorship approval in 1945, Dixie National Pictures had been taken over by Toddy Pictures Co., which became the film's distributor. According to an September 18, 1941 news item in the African-American journal California Eagle, Earl Morris, who played a tramp in the picture, broke his leg during shooting. Modern sources credit William X. Crowley as the film's director and include Florence O'Brien and Clarence Brooks in the cast.
