Midori and Chad

In September 1938, Warner Bros shot a Vitaphone short titled, “Two Shadows.” According to Rob Liebman’s exhaustive and invaluable reference book, Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of Features and Shorts, the film centered around a young man whose father wants him to go to work. To help him get a job as a bouncer, he stages a fight with his friend. Liebman lists the cast as including Ken and Roy Paige, Bill and Beverly Bemis, Irene Beasley, Sharkey Bonano’s Swing Band, and Jean and her Big Apple Dancers.

While this film is only one of thousands of missing Vitaphone shorts, a vital part of our national history that disappears by the day, it has particular significant to us for two reasons. First, the film features a group of dancers from New York University dancing the Big Apple, a dance we care about. Second, one of the dancers turns out to be an important figure in social dance history and someone we care deeply about, John Lucchese.

As John tells it, the story behind this film begins in the fall of 1937 when a group of dancers from Charlotte, N.C. were booked at the Roxy Theater on Broadway. Bill Ball was the choreographer for the troupe. This was the first time that John (18 years old at the time) had hear of the dance. To his recollection, no other groups danced the Big Apple at that time. While the group returned to Charlotte, Bill Ball stayed in New York, where he formed a second Big Apple dance group by placing an ad for dancers on the campus of New York University. He formed and choreographed (then called dance direction) the NYU Big Apple Dancers in late 1937. The group danced on Broadway as well as in New Jersey, Connecticut, and in several Warner Bros shorts, Two Shadows being the first. The above still comes from the film. It’s the only surviving item, at least that John Lucchese has. He hasn’t seen the short in almost 70 years.

The lead dancers appearing in the center of the photo are Bill Ball and his partner Jean Foreman. Bill Ball has passed away, according to John. Jean Foreman lives in California. Lucchese and Foreman still keep in touch.
The film was produced at Warner Bros’ Brooklyn, New York Studios. We’re calling on the help of Vitaphone collectors and Warner Bros buffs who may know about this film’s whereabouts and state to let us know any information you have on it. It would be a thrill to track down the footage and screen it for the 89-year old dance legend.

Posted on October 14th, 2006 by chad