Broken Strings (1940)

Starring:

• Clarence Muse 
• Sybil Lewis 
• William Washington
• Tommie Moore
• Matthew 'Stymie' Beard
• Pete Webster
• Edward Thompson
• Buck Woods
• Darby Jones
• Jess Lee Brooks

Storyline

The gifted hands of a world-renowned musician are crippled in a car crash. Reduced to giving lessons to children on the instrument he once mastered, violinist Arthur Williams (Clarence Muse) has become an embittered malcontent. Frustrated by the apparent lack of discipline in his students (one of them, his own son), and despairing of the decadent rise of primitive swing music, he is sorely in need of some kind of miracle-whether medical or musical.

Revered black actor Clarence Muse brings depth and gravity to this inspiring tale of the curative powers of love and music. Muse had a distinguished 50-year career in both "black" and "white" cinema, dating back to 1929, appearing in such classics as Huckleberry Finn (1931), White Zombie (1936), Count of Monte Cristo (1934), Show Boat (1936), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Double Indemnity (1944), Lost Weekend (1945), Porgy and Bess (1959), Car Wash (1976) and The Black Stallion (1979). Broken Strings also features an adolescent appearance by Our Gang graduate, Matthew "Stymie" Beard. Starring Clarence Muse, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Darby Jones. Directed by Bernard B. Ray.