Black and Tan," a 1929 short film featuring band leader, composer and pianist Duke Ellington, makes the most of its 19 minutes.

You get synchronized tuxedo-wearing tap dancers presented as a kaleidoscope, a cinematic trick that might have been considered edgy at the time. You get actress Fredi Washington in a hip-swiveling, high-kicking dance number that ends with her melodramatically slumping to the floor as a self-sacrificing victim of a bad heart. And you get the line "Remove your anatomy from that mahogany," said to Ellington by one of the supposedly illiterate men who has come to repossess his piano but gets bought off by a bottle of gin.

Short but significant, "Black and Tan" is one of five films recognized in a new U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamp series honoring early black films. Created during a time when often the only big screen roles for blacks in mainstream movies were of servants, the films showcase the comedic, acting and dancing talents of black performers. That's not to say the films' story lines don't sometimes lapse into stereotypes and that by modern standards the themes, sound and visuals seem primitive.

The brightly colored, jazzy-looking stamps honor film greats such as Ellington and Josephine Baker, but also lesser knowns such as Louis Jordan and Washington.

"We got here today through these people," said Marshall Hill, a board member of Norfolk's historic Attucks Theatre, which recently hosted a black film festival.

"Duke Ellington and 'Black and Tan' -- that was very significant when he did that," Hill said. "He was a major. That is what they were doing, they were capturing the major performers."

The stamp series was dedicated by the postal service in July in Newark, N.J., at a ceremony attended by Baker's adopted son, Jean-Claude Baker, actress Lynn Whitfield, who played lead in a film on Baker's life, and others.

The 42-cent Vintage Black Cinema stamps feature reproductions of the posters used to advertise the films, released between 1921 and 1945. Some of the poster artists are unknown.

Carl T. Hermann, stamp art director for the postal service, designed the series. Souvenir sheets of 20 stamps have a black movie-reel border.

Ellington gets top billing on the poster for "Black and Tan," which also features actress Washington in her film debut. Atlanta resident Shirley Codrington is grateful to see Washington, her aunt, being recognized.

"She was such a good actress and she could not get any roles," Codrington said in a phone interview.

Washington's light skin and green eyes made her too light to be cast as a black woman. Yet she could not get roles alongside white actors and actresses.

"There was one movie she made with Paul Robeson. They put dark makeup on her so people wouldn't think he was making love with a white woman," said Codrington. One of Washington's most famous roles was as Peola, a light-skinned black woman passing for white in the movie "Imitation of Life." Washington turned the dearth of roles available for blacks into activism, starting the Negro Actors Guild, according to a number of references.

Snippets from "Black and Tan" and some of the other films honored by the stamps can be seen on Youtube.com.

According to Cathy Boulé, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service Richmond District, the stamps are selling briskly. Of the 40 million made available in July, about 3 million were left last week, she said.

"Commemorative stamps normally sell well," Boulé said. "This was very, very well."

The others stamps in the series recognize:

"Caldonia"

Saxophonist Louis Jordan stars as himself in this 18-minute film from 1945. Jordan plays a musician who moves to New York, where he has been promised a career in acting.

The short features four musical numbers, including the title song "Caldonia." Caldonia is Jordan's girlfriend, who eventually leaves him despite his professions of love. Who can resist "Caldonia, Caldonia, what makes your big head so hard. . . . I love you just the same." Jordan stomps out each syllable before joining a duo of lithe-limbed dancers, keeping in time and step with their fancy footwork.

The stamp features Jordan wearing a zoot suit and top hat and with his saxophone around his neck.

"Princess Tam-Tam"

Josephine Baker stars in this full-length 1935 French-produced work filmed in Tunisia and France. Baker plays a peasant-like black woman who catches the eye of a French novelist taking a break in Tunisia to get away from his socialite wife. To make his wife jealous and to get over his writer's block, he presents Baker, whose character is named Alwina, as Princess Tam-Tam to his society friends. His goal is turn the ruse into the plot for his next book.

The film features Baker performing several numbers, including one where she discards the refined clothing, shoes and high-class attitude she has donned to hide who she really is. From beneath emerges a free-spirited, high-energy Baker, who, barefooted, jumps on stage and steals the show from other dancers. The mostly white audience looks on in horror and vexation.

The postage stamp reproduces posters that advertised the film in Denmark. Baker is seated with a larger silhouette in the background.

"Hallelujah"

Featuring an all-black cast, this 1929 Oscar-nominated film told the story of Zeke, a field laborer lured from his family by worldly temptations. Daniel L. Haynes played Zeke, and the film featured spirituals performed by the Dixie Jubilee Singers.

"Hallelujah" was one of the first major studio films with an all-black cast. The poster shows a female dancer and several musicians.

Hill, at Norfolk's Attucks Theatre, said Nina Mae McKinney delivered memorable performances in the movie as Zeke's street-savvy love interest.

"She stated something in her dance. She was very seductive," Hill said. "She was very much a star who never really made her mark like she should have because of segregation."

"The Sports of the Gods"

A 1921 silent film based on a novel of the same name by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The story line: A friend takes the blame for a friend's criminal wrongdoing and serves time in prison. His family, disgraced, moves from Virginia to New York City. The film is considered one of the first to bring a black literary work to the screen.

The postage stamp depicts a woman resisting the embrace of a suitor.