Shake It and Break It

Song Title: Shake It and Break It
Copyright:  1939 Red Star Songs, Inc., renewed 1967 and assigned to John Lange Music Co.,
a subsidiary of Bullseye Music, Inc.
Writers:  Johnny Lange, Lew Porter, and Mary Schaeffer
Recordings:  On film.
Sheet music:  Limited quantities available through publisher, see “contact us”. 
ASCAP affiliation: Yes
Genre:  Swing/African American

Films: One Dark Night (1939)  Artwork not available.              
This 1939 film from Million Dollar Productions also features
West of Harlem (Johnny Lange & Lew Porter) and  Alone Again  (Johnny
Lange & Lew Porter). 

Synopsis:   All African-American drama about the Brown family.  The father,
played by Mantan Moreland, has been waiting twenty-some years for a business
deal to come through.  His family, which includes his meddling in-laws, throws him
out for his laziness.    The family comes to believe he is dead, and the wife receives
advances from an old boyfriend.  Actually, the father
has wandered off  to the desert, where he strikes it rich on a radium discovery. 
He  buys a nightclub from a lecherous fellow who begins trying to court his daughter.  
Eventually, his family forgives him and everyone is reunited. 

The film was intended to be the first of a family drama series billed as Million Dollar
Production’s “colored counterpart” to the Hardys and the Joneses; consequently the film
was renamed The Nightclub Girl upon submission.  However, the series never came to be
and this was the only Brown family drama that was produced.  (From: Within our Gates:
Ethnicity in American Feature Films 1911-1960, American Film Institute, by Alan
Gevinson).  For more history on Black roles in
early film, see Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film 1900-1942, Galaxy
Books, by Thomas Cripps).     

Stars:  Mantan Moreland and Arthur Ray. 
Mantan Moreland played early stereotypical African American roles and was best known as
the assistant to Charlie Chan, beginning with “Charlie Chan in the Secret Service” in 1944. 
In 1959, he made this statement about his career:  “Millions of people may have thought that
my acting was comical but I know now that it wasn’t always so funny to my own people.”
For more on Mantan Moreland, see http://www.africanamericans.com/MantanMoreland.htm. 
Directed by:   Leo C. Popkin
Produced:  Million Dollar Production/ Harry M. Popkin

Lyrics:

Come on you jitterbugs—
And all you shagaroos
Come on and shake your feet
And dance away your blues
CHORUS:
Shake it and break it,
Now here’s how you do it
Shake it and break it
For there’s nothing to it

Keep that music in your soul
Let that rhythm rock and roll
Shake it and break it and mix it with jam
Hey!  Shake it and break it
Come down with a slam,
Hey! you hot peppers Hip along
You’ll be sure to ring the gong

Harlem! Harlem has sent the latest craze
Come on!  Come on!
Dance the dance they’re doin’ now a-days,
Shake it and break it and put a bump to it
Shake it and break it and then you mump to it

Lift your feet and dig some jive
Shake it and break it!
Shake it and break it!
Shake it and break it!