It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Junction 88 (1948) – Musical #766

Studio:
Century Theatrical Productions

Director:
George R. Quigley

Starring:
As themselves: Bob Howard, Pigmeat Markham, Noble Sissel
Also starring: Wyatt Clark, Marie Cooke, Gus Smith, Abbey Mitchell, Artie Belle McGinty, George Wiltshire, Herbert Junior, Alonzo Basan, Maude Simmons, Al Young, Augustus Smith, Augustus Smith Jr.
Billed as the choir: Eugene Thompson, Rumena Matson, Mable Berger, Delphine Roach, Henry Nelson

Plot:
Buster (Clark) is a songwriter, but doesn’t want anyone to know that he wrote this song. Buster loves Lolly (Cooke), but her father prefers hardworking men, and he fears that he wouldn’t look kindly at a songwriting career. Music agents (Howard, Markham) get ahold of Buster’s songs that are published under the pen name of Hewlett Green. The agents travel to the small town of Junction 88 to find Green, but no one in town knows who the mysterious Hewlett Green is.

Trivia:
• The film is part of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture collection
• Original songs in the film were written by J. Augustus Smith and Herbert Junior and played by the Noble Sissel Orchestra. Smith and Junior also perform as actors in the film. The only song not written for the film was “Lulu’s Back in Town”
• Augustus Smith wrote the music and screenplay for the film, as well as acting in the film.
• Final feature film of Bob Howard, Pigmeat Markham, Abbey Mitchell,
• Only film of Wyatt Clark and Herbert Junior
• First film of Marie Cooke
• Though his music appears on more than 50 film soundtracks, this was the only feature film appearance of Nobel Sissel.

Notable Songs:
• “Somewhere Happy With You” performed by Wyatt Clark
• “Lulu’s Back in Town” performed by Bob Howard
• “Junction 88” performed by Bob Howard
• “In the Time of Saul” performed by Augusts Smith, Jr.
• “Walking with Caroline” performed by Bob Howard
• “Where Does the Wind Go” performed by Bob Howard and Pigmeat Markham
• “Eagle Eye Blues” performed by Pigmeat Markham

My review:
This week’s Musical Monday, “Junction 88” (1948) is filled with several enjoyable original songs and runs at a brisk 50 minutes.

The film follows Buster (Wyatt Clark) who is in love with Lolly (Marie Clarke) and also wants to be a songwriter. Because Lolly’s father disapproves of this type of livelihood and only believes in hard work, Buster keeps his songwriting a secret from the community and writes under a pen name. Two music agents from New York, Bob Howard and Pigmeat Markham (as themselves), come to the small town of Junction 88 looking for a man named Hewlett Green who wrote songs they want to publish. But no one in town knows this person and it becomes a baffling mystery.

As the music agents look for Mr. Green, toe-tapping music is performed along the way.

“Junction 88” is known as a “race film,” starring an all-Black cast for segregated audiences. Produced between the dawn of film through the early 1950s, these films were produced outside of major Hollywood studios. Sometimes, race films still include racial stereotypes, but “Junction 88” thankfully does not include any of those inappropriate stereotypes or jokes.

While this film is in a Smithsonian collection and highly accessible on platforms like Prime Video, it sometimes can be difficult to find detailed information about the cast members or production notes, because often times films like “Junction 88” are overlooked or underseen.

For example, there are discrepancies in release dates, with both 1947 and 1948 listed. However, both the Library of Congress and Smithsonian list the release as 1948, so I went with that.

Several of the performers were only in a handful of films, like Wyatt Clark and Marie Cooke. It’s a shame that Wyatt Clark wasn’t in more films, he had a beautiful singing voice!

The standout performances in the film came from the two most famous performers in the film: Pigmeat Markham and Bob Howard. Though Howard was only in a few films, he was famous outside of the film industry already. Howard was a pianist-singer who had his own radio show since 1937.

Pigmeat Markham was similarly already a famous singer. He already had a hit with “Open the Door Richard” and performed frequently at the Apollo Theater. Markham later made several appearances on “Laugh-In.”

Howard and Markham play well off each other as a comedy duo and there is a funny scene with the two of them trying to communicate with someone for directions.

While several songs are beautifully performed by Bob Howard, the standout song to me is “Eagle Eye Blues,” performed by Markham. For much of the movie Markham is a jokester and clowns, but then he belts out the blues and it’s breathtaking.

Many of the songs were written by Augustus Smith, who appears in the film, as does his young son, Augustus Smith, Jr. I loved hearing Augustus Jr. perform “In the Time of Saul.”

I enjoyed all the songs, but also the theme “Junction 88” sounded reminiscent to “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

For the musical performances and appearances from Bob Howard and Pigmeat Markham, “Junction 88” is worth a visit.

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