Check and Double Check (1930) on Netflix
Amos and Andy's business is one open-top taxi, the Fresh Air Taxicab Company. When it breaks down in traffic, Kingfish hires them to drive a band to the Blair estate.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix2.4/5
- IMDb4.8/10466 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
The Fresh Air Taxicab Company owns one cab, and it has no top. Amos and Andy drive it, and when the cab breaks down in traffic, John Blair and his wife are held up and miss Richard Williams, the family friend they went to meet at the station. Richard reaches the Blair house alone and finds Jean Blair, his childhood sweetheart, and the two take up where they left off, to the displeasure of Ralph Crawford, who has been courting Jean. Richard tells John he will not pursue Jean until he can afford a business of his own; his family lost its money after his father died, and he hopes to sell his grandfather's old Harlem house once he finds the deed. Kingfish hires the cab drivers to carry a band to a party at the Blair estate.
Cast
- Duke Ellington Orchestraas The Cotton Club Orchestra(The Cotton Club Orchestra)
Show all 19 cast
- Barney Bigardas Member, Cotton Club Orchestra(uncredited)
- Wellman Braudas Member, Cotton Club Orchestra(uncredited)
- Harry Carneyas Member, Cotton Club Orchestra(uncredited)
- Pat Conwayas Policeman(uncredited)
- Sonny Greeras Member, Cotton Club Orchestra(uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Check and Double Check (1930)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On radio the characters of Amos and Andy were voiced by whites, so rather than hire black actors, the program's creators Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll played the roles themselves in blackface for the film.
- To turn a 15-minute radio program into a full-length picture, the producers added a love triangle between white characters, making Amos and Andy minor characters in a film that was marketed as being about them.
- Worried that audiences would think Duke Ellington's band was racially integrated, the director had two light-skinned members, valve trombonist Juan Tizol and clarinetist Barney Bigard, wear stage makeup so they looked as dark as Amos and Andy on film.
- Ellington's drummer Sonny Greer got stage fright about performing on film, so The Rhythm Boys, Bing Crosby, Harry Barris and Al Rinker, were brought in at the last minute to sing "Three Little Words"; Crosby's solo attempt was reportedly dismissed by director Melville Brown with "This guy can't sing".
- After the Amos 'n' Andy television show was withdrawn over civil-rights considerations, most local stations that owned the RKO library stopped showing Check and Double Check as well.
- The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 when its copyright was not renewed, and film merchants then copied C&C Television prints of it for the home-movie market and later for home video.
