- Produced by
- CBS Broadcasting, Inc., American, founded 1927
- Subject of
- Coles, Charles "Honi", American, 1911 - 1992
- Atkins, Charles, American, 1913 - 2003
- Stearns, Marshall PhD, American, 1908 - 1966
- Macandrew, James, Scottish American, ca. 1907 - 1988
- Owned by
- Smith, Ernie, American, ca. 1925 - 2004
- Date
- 1965
- Medium
- acetate film
- Dimensions
- Duration (digital file): 00:04:13
- Physical extent (film): 150 ft
- Description
- A strip of 16 mm motion picture film with an excerpt from "Over the Top to Bebop," an episode of the Camera Three television program aired on WCBS-TV. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, 16 mm acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. It opens with jazz scholar Marshall Stearns and host James Macandrew engaging in a conversation about tap dancing. Stearns goes on to describe Honi Coles and Cholly Atkins as class acts and their soft-shoe tap routine as a "classic." Subsequently, he invites Coles and Atkins to perform their soft-shoe tap dance "to an incredibly slow tempo." The camera then cuts to both men dancing slowly on a slightly raised platform, mirroring each other's movements, as instrumental music plays in the background. At the end of their performance, the dancers join Macandrew and Stearns. Macandrew comments that he recognizes the music they performed to from the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky featuring Ethel Waters, to which Honi Coles responds that Ethel Waters frequently watched their rehearsals, just before the excerpt comes to an end.
- Place filmed
- New York City, New York County, New York, United States, North and Central America
- Portfolio/Series
- Camera Three
- Classification
- Time-based Media - Moving Images
- Topic
- Dance
- Film
- Jazz (Music)
- Television
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Anonymous Gift in memory of Ernest (Ernie) R. Smith, Jazz Historian
- Object number
- 2015.275.16.1a
- Restrictions & Rights
- Restrictions likely apply. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.




