A focused shot of Joshua White playing guitar in the rendition of "John Henry."

O’Keefe remains seated and begins to sing “Strawberry Roan,” a traditional ballad. Long takes of O’Keefe singing and playing are occasionally cut with shots of his companions and farm life: Geer smiling, Ives playing horseshoes, a horse outside a stable, and a duck waddling in the dirt. As the song ends, another of Ives’ horseshoes fails to hit its mark. Geer laughs and says, “you better sing.” O’Keefe playfully tosses his guitar to Ives. Standing with his right leg bent on a chair, Ives begins playing folk ballad “Grey Goose,” as O’Keefe and Geer listen.  

As Ives finishes, the men hear White, his voice booming, singing “John Henry” from inside the mess hall. They smile and call on him to come outside and join them. As White joins the trio, he says, “You know I can’t sing it by myself,” and asks them to join in as a chorus. White’s song begins with a close-up of his hands on the guitar. Subsequent shots show White directly in the center of the frame with Geer, Ives, and O’Keefe harmonizing around him. Close-ups of the trio grinning and looking up towards White convey joy and admiration. As “John Henry” reaches its final verse, the camera returns to a long shot of the four men, showing farm equipment in the immediate foreground. The film returns to the opening establishing shot of the farm followed by a shot of fluffy clouds. Fades to black. 

Tall Tales was dreamed up by Brandon and Van Dyke as the first in a series of 12 short films about America’s folk song tradition with the endorsement of Lomax, then curator of folk song at the Library of Congress.² In their shared desire to record and celebrate a uniquely American form of cultural expression, Tall Tales reflects a growing interest in folk culture among the American left during the 1930s; it also embodies historian William Stott’s characterization of the period’s documentary impulse as “an expression of Americans trying to know and show themselves.”³  

Much like classic U.S. social documentaries of the period (such as The Plow That Broke the Plains [1936] and People of the Cumberland [1937]), the film’s setting evokes the nation’s pastoral heritage and puts the laborer front and center. However, in contrast to contemporary works made by socially committed filmmakers depicting laborers (such as Valley Town [1940], Tall Tales exists in an idealized space devoid of strife. The land is lush, not barren. The workers are happy, healthy, and fed, enjoying a moment of leisure before they return to the fields. There is no threat of employment or ecological disruption wrought by automated machinery. As an eight-minute short depicting three staged music performances, it is thus distinct from many of its contemporaries, but it is also hardly devoid of politics.

Joshua White playing guitar while around Will Greer, Winston O'Keefe, and Burl Ives.

Tall Tales projects an ambigious harmony across racial lines. The casting of White (a Black performer) alongside Ives, Geer, and O’Keefe (all white men) suggests the progressive politics of the filmmakers, producers, and actors. The staging of White’s performance likewise connotes a sense of progressiveness. As he sings, White is in the center of the frame standing upright. The trio sit below him and look upwards with admiring smiles and serve as supporting chorus to White’s lead. Moreover, during White’s performance, Van Dyke and co-director William Watts include two close-ups of his strumming, drawing explicit attention to his technical proficiency. Geer and Ives are not subject to similar shots. 

However, outside his “John Henry” performance, White’s place within the film’s larger narrative is more ambiguous. Whereas the three white farmhands work together outdoors, White works in the kitchen. He also remains separate from the group during their leisure time. White only joins the trio in earnest when they invite him outside. And unlike Geer and Ives, who perform solo, White comments that he cannot “sing it alone.” Taken together, Tall Tales is a celebration of America’s folk tradition that, by including Josh White and “John Henry,” acknowledges the contribution of Black artists in the creation of this tradition. At the same time, White’s place within the narrative nevertheless projects a more ambiguous sense of racial equality, reflecting the contradictory nature of racial politics and democratic ideals in Jim Crow America even among those on the left. 

Tall Tales was shot on June 30 and July 1, 1940, in Rockland County, just north of New York City. It was ready for release by the end of August. While it was planned and heavily publicized as the first of an intended 12-part folk film series, it was ultimately the only short produced. A letter of agreement between Brandon and Van Dyke’s production company concerns only Tall Tales, suggesting it was something of a proof of concept, a commercial test run. As executive producer, Brandon had fronted all production costs. The letter stipulates that after all production costs were recouped, Brandon would keep the first $5,000 gross receipts as compensation for managing the production and sales. The letter also outlines specific financial provisions contingent upon whether or not the film secured theatrical release. Finally, the letter stipulates that Brandon would refrain from making any additional investments until a “major company” expressed interest in buying a full series of multiple folk song productions for $2,500 or more. While Brandon may have touted the intended series in the trades, behind-the-scenes the agreement suggests that both Brandon and Van Dyke acknowledged the project’s niche appeal but were, nevertheless, hopeful that Tall Tales would be well-received and successful enough to justify further productions.⁴ 

As a short independent film made outside Hollywood, and thus with no direct line to a major theater chain, Tall Tales faced insurmountable commercial odds. Despite the prestige of the film’s cast, it failed to gain much commercial traction. In November 1940, three months after the film was ready for release, Brandon candidly wrote to Josh White: “after much running around to the big companies, the final story on TALL TALES is that everybody likes it [but] they say ‘folk songs don’t fit in with regular theatrical releases.’” Brandon eventually found one willing exhibitor, the 550-seat Belmont Theater in New York’s Times Square, to exhibit Tall Tales in December.⁵ 

Tall Tales had comparatively more success within the 16mm ‘nontheatrical’ educational sector the following year. The film was featured in the Amateur Cinema League’s monthly publication Movie Makers as a “Film You’ll Want to Show” and tagged as a notable new release by The Educational Screen’s “Teacher Committee.” The latter publication wrote that the film “can be used to great advantage to enrich student experience in the study of literature and music. Students of American literature will bring greater understanding and appreciation of reading and discussion of the folk ballad after seeing and hearing these songs. The atmosphere and informal mood of folk music is well demonstrated.” The Teacher Committee’s appraisal also included Lomax’s description of the film as an important document of American culture: “‘There is nothing in italics in these ballads, nothing stressed — the people who sing and listen know the facts, it’s their story, the story of America.’”⁶  

If the limited theatrical appeal of Tall Tales made the future of Brandon’s “American Folk Series” unlikely, we can adduce that Pearl Harbor ended the project definitively, as both Van Dyke and Brandon turned their attention elsewhere. Yet Tall Tales – and Van Dyke’s interest in documenting America’s folk tradition – would outlive the war. In 1946, Richard Griffith of the National Board of Review Magazine promoted Tall Tales and characterized its continued appeal: “[it would be] eagerly welcomed by the students, connoisseurs and amateurs of American folk music, especially music clubs and appreciation sources.” And Van Dyke, of course, returned to the subject of folk music in the aforementioned To Hear Your Banjo Play. Both Tall Tales and To Hear Your Banjo Play circulated as part of Brandon Films’ rental catalogs through the 1950s. And when Brandon embarked on a speaking tour in the 1970s about America’s documentary tradition records indicate he sometimes slipped Tall Tales onto the bill alongside early 1930s worker newsreels and landmark works by Frontier Films such as China Strikes Back (1937) and Native Land (1942).  

I sincerely hope you enjoy the film as much as I do and it finds a new audience after decades of obscurity. 

Thank you to Rachael Stoeltje for generously making the 16mm print available for the MoMA screening and to Carmel Curtis for digitizing Tall Tales (and many other films!) to aid in my ongoing research.  

Tanya Goldman is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at Bowdoin College. For more information on her research, visit tanyagoldmanphd.com.