St. Louis Blues (1929 film)

St. Louis Blues is a 1929 American two-reel short film starring Bessie Smith. Directed by Dudley Murphy, it is the only known film featuring Bessie Smith, and the soundtrack is her only recording not controlled by Columbia Records. An early sound film, it features an entirely black cast, with Smith in the role of a woman left alone by her roving lover; in a speakeasy during the Prohibition era, the woman sings the W. C. Handy standard "St.