Film clip from Camera Three: Over the Top To BeBop: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A strip of 16 mm motion picture film with an excerpt from "Over the Top to Bebop," an episode of the Camera Three television program aired on WCBS-TV. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, 16 mm acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. It opens with jazz scholar Marshall Stearns and host James Macandrew engaging in a conversation about tap dancing. Stearns goes on to describe Honi Coles and Cholly Atkins as class acts and their soft-shoe tap routine as a "classic." Subsequently, he invites Coles and Atkins to perform their soft-shoe tap dance "to an incredibly slow tempo." The camera then cuts to both men dancing slowly on a slightly raised platform, mirroring each other's movements, as instrumental music plays in the background. At the end of their performance, the dancers join Macandrew and Stearns. Macandrew comments that he recognizes the music they performed to from the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky featuring Ethel Waters, to which Honi Coles responds that Ethel Waters frequently watched their rehearsals, just before the excerpt comes to an end.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1965
• Produced by: CBS Broadcasting, Inc., American, founded 1927
• Subject of: Charles "Honi" Coles, American, 1911 - 1992
• Subject of: Charles Atkins, American, 1913 - 2003
• Subject of: Marshall Stearns PhD, American, 1908 - 1966
• Subject of: James Macandrew, Scottish American, ca. 1907 - 1988
• Owned by: Ernie Smith, American, ca. 1925 - 2004
• Type: sound films
• Type: black-and-white films (visual works)
• Type: 16mm (photographic film size)
• Type: film clips
• Medium: acetate film
• Dimensions: Duration (digital file): 00:04:13
• Dimensions: Physical extent (film): 150 ft
• Place filmed: New York City, New York County, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Dance
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Jazz (Music)
• Topic: Television
• Object number: 2015.275.16.1a
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Anonymous Gift in memory of Ernest (Ernie) R. Smith, Jazz Historian
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Restrictions likely apply. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.