Both Murphy's *Black and Tan Fantasy* and his Bessie Smith short,
*St. Louis Blues,* are mesmerizing.  A discussion of Murphy's film work
can be found in William Moritz, "Americans in Paris," in Jan-Christopher
Horak, *Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919-1945,*
118-136.  Moritz states the shorts were RKO releases, which may well be,
since I believe they were part of a series of musical short subjects made
to promote RCA's new variable-area sound recording system, although, as I
recall, *Black and Tan Fantasy* contains animation that looks very
Fleischeresque, which would be the Paramount connection.  I doubt
Paramount would have released through RKO!
 
        Moritz's chapter gives a good overview of the career of Murphy,
who was *definitely* an interesting dude, creating music videos forty
years before music videos.
_______________________________________________________________________________
                          William Lafferty, PhD
 
Department of Theatre Arts                           [log in to unmask]
Wright State University                           office (937) 775-4581 or 3072
Dayton, OH  45435-0001  USA                            facsimile (937) 775-3787
 
        The universe was once conceived almost as a vast preserve, landscaped
  for heroes, plotted to provide them the appropriate adventures.   The rules
  were known and respected, the adversaries honorable, the oracles articulate
  and precise as the directives of a six-lane parkway.  Errors of weakness or
  vanity  led,  with  measured  momentum,  to  the  tragedy  which   resolved
  everything.  Today, the rules are ambiguous, the adversary is  concealed in
  aliases, the oracles broadcast a babble of contradictions.
 
                                 --- Maya Deren, from her notes for *At Land*
 
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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite