Boogie Woogie Dream

• 1941
• 0 hr 14 mins

• Watchlist

As this short opens, Teddy Wilson and his orchestra are finishing up their last gig of the night at a swank café. As the band and audience leave, a woman in the audience says the band was good, but her date says they weren't what he was looking for. The woman leaves to powder her nose and the café staff comes out. One worker starts playing the piano and another, Lena Horne, polishes glasses while wishing she could wear a new gown and sing the low-down blues in a place like this. Her co-workers (Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson) encourage her, and she pretends they are the star attraction before a large audience. Ammons and Johnson play their twin-piano "Boogie Woogie Blues," then Horne fantasizes she is singing "Unlucky Woman" with Wilson -- and in a beautiful gown, to boot. At the end of the number, the audience member, his date, and the three co-workers seem to awaken from a dream. But whether a dream or not, the man in the audience tells the trio to come to his office for an audition -- the break they've been waiting for!