“Sugar Hill Baby”. [1937 Film Advertisement]

United States: N.p., 1937. Flyer measuring 8 x 10 ½ inches. Folded at middle, with some wear mainly to margins, and some small repairs verso. Very good plus.. A flyer advertising the all-Black drama film Sugar Hill Baby (1937). The film, directed by Irwin Franklyn and originally titled Harlem Aristocrat, featured all local actors recruited from the readership of the African-American newspaper The New York Age alongside Willie Bryant’s Harlemanians. Bryant (1908–1964) was an actor, radio DJ, and bandleader; he formed the Harlemanians in 1934, and replaced Chick Webb’s orchestra on NBC. In 1952, Mayor Vincent Impellitteri named Bryant the “Mayor of Harlem” for his contributions to the community.

The flyer’s copy promises that the film is “Dramatically Superb! Crammed With Action, Thrills, Laughs, Tantalizing Tunes, and With the Greatest Love Story Ever Told!” Sugar Hill Baby is one of the many so-called “race films”—films by and for Black audiences—that have been lost to time.