Preserving Greenville’s Cinematic History

The Story of Pitch a Boogie Woogie

For eighty years, the film Pitch a Boogie Woogie has occupied a unique place in North Carolina history. Produced in Greenville in 1947 and released the following year, it was the only commercial motion picture produced by Lord-Warner Pictures, the state’s first homegrown movie production company. Featuring an entirely African American cast composed primarily of local performers, the film captured a vibrant community, its music, and its aspirations at a time when such stories were rarely told on screen. Today, the East Carolina Manuscript Collection is pleased to make this remarkable film more accessible than ever before through the digitization of the original motion picture.

A Movie Born in Greenville

Portrait of William Lord, producer of the movie Pitch a Boogie Woogie. Image from John W. Warner Papers (#519), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

In the years immediately following the Second World War, the American film industry was dominated by the major Hollywood studios. Independent productions certainly existed, but producing a feature film outside California or New York required equal parts optimism and determination. Greenville, North Carolina, was not a place most people associated with filmmaking. Yet Greenville businessman John W. Warner believed North Carolina could produce its own feature films. Warner, owner of Greenville’s Plaza Theatre, joined forces with his brother William Lord to establish Lord-Warner Pictures, Inc. Their goal was ambitious but simple: create motion pictures in North Carolina. Pitch a Boogie Woogie became the company’s first, and only, commercial release.

Upon first glance, Pitch a Boogie Woogie is a musical comedy. Music fills much of the film, with performances ranging from vocal ensembles to lively jazz and boogie-woogie numbers, as the story features elements of romance and humor. Today, however, the film provides viewers with a larger narrative, one that captures the people and communities of Greenville and eastern North Carolina at a time of social, political, and cultural change.

Warner’s cameras captured storefronts, automobiles, clothing styles, hairstyles, neighborhoods, and public spaces that have long since changed. Background details that might have gone unnoticed by audiences in 1948 have become valuable historical evidence for researchers.

Even more important is the community the film documents. Produced during the era of Jim Crow segregation, Pitch a Boogie Woogie featured an all-African American cast composed primarily of local performers who represented a thriving African American community centered around Greenville’s historic African American business district, commonly known as “The Block.” For decades, The Block served as an important center of commerce, music, entertainment, and community life. Although many of these buildings have disappeared, the

Actors, Tom Foreman and Herman Forbes, seated at a table in the dream nightclub, in a still from the movie Pitch a Boogie Woogie. Image from John W. Warner Papers (#519), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

film preserves a glimpse of the people and culture that made it such an important part of Greenville’s history.

Today, historians and researchers study films like Pitch a Boogie Woogie not simply as entertainment but as historical documents. Every frame preserves details that written records have often overlooked.

The Film’s Reemergence

Although Pitch a Boogie Woogie represented a significant part of the culture of eastern North Carolina at the time of its release, the film never achieved widespread national distribution. In 1949, just one year after the film’s release, Lord-Warner Pictures dissolved. John Warner shifted his attention to television production and other media ventures, while the film gradually fell out of public view.

That changed, however, in the 1980s as a new generation of scholars and local historians brought the film and its significance back to the public eye. One of the leading figures in this rediscovery was East Carolina University professor Alex Albright, whose 1998 UNC-TV documentary, Boogie in Black and White, introduced the film and the people who made it to new audiences.

The renewed interest in the film and its significance extended beyond Greenville. In 1986, North Carolina Governor James G. Martin officially proclaimed, “Pitch a Boogie Woogie Week,” recognizing the film’s significance to the state’s cultural history and celebrating its rediscovery. The proclamation described the movie as an important reflection of postwar North Carolina life and acknowledged its unique place as the only commercial production created by North Carolina’s first movie company.

Proclamation by the Governor of North Carolina, James G. Martin, designating the week of February 2, 1986, as Pitch a Boogie Woogie Week, in honor of the rediscovery of the film. Item from John W. Warner Papers (#519), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

Today, the East Carolina Manuscript Collection preserves the surviving documentary record related to the Pitch a Boogie Woogie film. The John W. Warner Papers (ECMC #0519) contain correspondence, legal documents, production records, promotional materials, scripts, photographs, soundtrack recordings, stock certificates for Lord-Warner Pictures, and original film elements documenting the production and later rediscovery of Pitch a Boogie Woogie. Together, these materials provide an unusually complete picture of how an independent motion picture was financed, produced, promoted, and eventually preserved.

Researchers can also explore the Boogie in Black and White Documentary Collection (ECMC #1086), which preserves interviews, research files, photographs, audiovisual materials, promotional items, and documentary production records assembled during Alex Albright’s work on his 1998 documentary, Boogie in Black and White. Taken together, these collections document not only the history of the film but also the memories of the people and community that brought it to life.

Today, Pitch a Boogie Woogie can reach a new audience through ECU’s Digital Collections. We invite you to watch it and to explore the related materials preserved in the East Carolina Manuscript Collection. Whether you are interested in North Carolina history, African American history, regional filmmaking, jazz, or simply enjoy discovering overlooked pieces of the past, the film offers something worth seeing.