The Nicholas Brothers' "Jumpin Jive" dance number was done in one take.
Final film of Fats Waller. On December 15, 1943, less than five months after the film's July 21 opening in Manhattan, Waller, age 39, died of pneumonia on a train stopped at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Having fallen ill during an engagement at the Zanzibar Room in Hollywood, he had boarded the Santa Fe Chief in Los Angeles and was headed for New York City.
Final film of Bill Robinson, who died of heart failure at age 71 on November 25, 1949 in New York City.
Two musical numbers were deleted from the release print: "Good-for-Nothin' Joe" (music by Rube Bloom, lyrics by Ted Koehler), sung by Lena Horne, who already was identified with this torch song via her 1941 Victor recording as the vocalist with Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra; and "Alfred the Moocher," a parody by Cab Calloway of his trademark "Minnie the Moocher" (music and lyrics by Calloway, Irving Mills and Clarence Gaskill). The Alfred being spoofed likely is renowned film composer and music director Alfred Newman. Only a voice track of the send-up remains. On a V-Disc of selections from the film made by Miss Horne with the Calloway band, "Good-for-Nothin' Joe" was included.