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Yes Sir, Mr. Bones! Movie Poster
National Screen Service Corp.
Large, twenty-seven inch by forty-one inch, movie theater poster for the 1951 film, Yes Sir, Mr. Bones, featuring Freeman "Brother Bones" Davis. Lithographed in U.S.A. Dated: Dec 2, 1953. Marked: R51/422.
About the film
No Hollywood film has ever captured the true ambience of a minstrel show. This low budget film stands alone as the most accurate representation ever produced.
The production features a cast of authentic minstrel performers - a remarkable feat considering the film was released in 1951. The movie includes the only known film footage of legendary minstrel, Emmett Miller. And Brother Bones performs a solid two-and-a-half minutes of whistlin', dancin' and bone rattlin' like no one has ever seen before.
What the Movie is About
This full-length movie features a bevy of authentic "late vaudevillian minstrel performers". Their average age is around 70 years old. The film represents a merger of burlesque, minstrelsy and vaudeville.
The Storyline
A young boy wanders into the Show Boat Rest Inn, a home for old minstrel men. The boy wants to know more about them. The oldsters are more than delighted to oblige. The film flashes back to a performance from the nostalgic days of riverboat shows...minstrel songs, buck-and-wing dancing, end-man jokes, soft-shoe routines, variety acts - and yes sir, Mister Bones!
- Lithographed in U.S.A.: Dated Dec 2, 1953
- Length: 41"
- Width: 27"
- Property of: National Screen Service Corp.
- Marked: 51/422
- Condition: Excellent, but fragile. Paper shows discoloration from aging. Folded w/creases. No significant tears.
Who is Brother Bones?
Freeman 'Brother Bones' Davis was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1902.
As a kid, Freeman made his own musical bones from cow ribs he got down at the slaughterhouse. His favorite bones included ivory, rosewood, ebony—and knives.
Gifted Entertainer
Freeman Davis became known as Whistling Sam in Long Beach, California. That's where he worked his shoeshine stand in a barber shop vestibule. Folks say he would tap dance and pop his shoeshine rag to popular tunes.
And he could draw a crowd! Word has it he could whistle so loud that people in cars outside the barber shop would stop to listen—at least until the police came by to clear the traffic jam.
Brother Bones lived most of his years in Long Beach. But it all started back in Montgomery when he was just a little boy who listened to his mother whistle. "My mother used to whistle all the time...she was just a happy person," Brother Bones once explained to a newspaper reporter.
 Although he never achieved great fame, Brother Bones was a gifted entertainer who performed at prominent venues including Carnegie Hall and The Ed Sullivan Show. He played on stage with eminent musicians including Woody Herman, Teddy Buckener, Jimmy Lunsford, and Russ Morgan.
Brother Bones served as a consultant to Bing Crosby in Frank Capra's Riding High (1950) where Bing plays dinner knives—bones style. And he even appeared in two feature films: Yes Sir, Mr. Bones (1951) with Scatman Crothers, and Pot O' Gold (1941) as a jail chef playing traditional spoons, starring James Stewart.
Recorded One of the Most Listened To Recordings in History
The greatest legacy of Brother Bones is his 1948 recording of Sweet Georgia Brown.
The tune was adopted in 1952 by the Harlem Globetrotters basketball
team as their official theme song. This version "is probably in the top ten most listened to recordings in history," reported Steve Wixson, editor of the Rhythm Bones Player.
Greatest Whistling Bones Player
Brother Bones died in 1974 at the age of 71. The Rhythm Bones Society offered a tribute to Freeman Davis at Bones Fest VI in 2002, which honored the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Noted for playing four bones in each hand, Freeman 'Brother Bones' Davis is admired among the world community of bone players as a consummate entertainer who developed into the greatest whistling bones player of all time.
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