The Emperor Jones.

Review #2177: The Emperor Jones.

Cast: 

Paul Robeson (Brutus Jones), Dudley Digges (Smithers), Frank H. Wilson (Jeff), Fredi Washington (Undine), Ruby Elzy (Dolly), George Haymid Stamper (Lem), Jackie "Moms" Mabley (Marcella), Blueboy O'Connor (Treasurer), Brandon Evans (Carrington), and Rex Ingram (Court Crier) Directed by Dudley Murphy.

Review: 

Paul Robeson was a talent among himself, but this film was a curious one to look through. In 1920, Eugene O'Neill's play of tragedy in The Emperor Jones premiered on the New York stage. The play was inspired by the occupation of Haiti by the United States (which happened from 1915 to 1934), which had resulted in bloodshed and discourse about its level of imperialism. It was the first successful play for O'Neill, who would win his first Pulitzer Prize for Drama (adding three more in the next number of years); the character of Jones when it came to certain aspect of personality was inspired by Adam Scott, a close friend of O'Neill. Charles Sidney Gilpin was the original actor to play the role of Jones on the stage, which he did for the original performances before disagreements with O'Neill (specifically with the use of a racial slur) led to changes. Robeson (who had studied law after a noted college career in football at Rutgers) was brought in for the revival a few years later, and he also did the play for a radio adaptation. This is the only film adaptation of the play, but there have been several other adaptations in various media, such as a 1933 opera (as done by Louis Gruenberg) along with several TV productions (with one starring Ossie Davis). Only in a certain era would people see rushes for a film and think that an actor (Washington) needs makeup in reshoots to make them darker so that they did not look light-skinned next to Robeson. It was the only film screenplay for author DuBose Heyward, best known for his work on the 1925 novel Porgy and his adaptation alongside his wife to a play in 1927 (years later it was adapted against into an opera in Porgy and Bess); he was recruited by director Dudley Murphy to do a screenplay with background applied to an adaptation after convincing O'Neill about getting a film project off the ground. Contentiously, it is stated that Murphy had a hand in the film Ballet Mécanique, a collaboration he worked with Fernand Léger as a "Dadaist post-Cubist art film" (in 1924) to go with two 1929 short films featuring music in St. Louis Blues (featuring Bessie Smith) and Black and Tan (featuring Duke Ellington and His Orchestra). William C. deMille apparently did un-credited work on the film in supervising direction. The film had John Krimsky and Gifford A. Cochran as producers, who had previously helped Madchen in Uniform (1932) reach American audiences.

The movie probably doesn't have the power that a long soliloquy has on the stage, but it is still pretty easy to see just how good Robeson can make a film work when it is his show to cut loose. He wouldn't have that many chances to do this in America, which led to him taking on roles abroad (such as King Solomon's Mines [1937]) prior to his final feature role in 1942, but he was quite busy in activism in a variety of fields. Studio sets doubling for the jungle work out pretty well in a tale of hubris and the ever-growing drumbeat of doom. This was a film shot by Ernest Haller, who you might recognize as the future cinematographer of Gone with the Wind (1939), which worked with the sets designed by art designer Herman Rosse. The film is in the public domain, although finding a good print would be ideal, since a restored print by Criterion was only done in 2006. It is a tale of exploitation in that rise to power that is shaped by a man's failure to run away fully from their past. Granted, it is a fairly dated film when it comes to overall execution, because the two halves of the film (rise and fall) don't exactly mesh as well as one might hope they would (of course there was a bit of censorship done depending on the audience, such as not including a certain slur when playing to black audiences to go with trimming a pivotal moment of rebellion). Robeson stands out the best, with Digges and his observations as a fellow exploiter being second among a general row of bluster impressing among ordinary observers (well, aside from the first segment that involves hucksters, buy you get the idea). As a whole, Robeson maneuvers the act of a man gripped with craving an image all for himself in better things that means greed and brutality before eventually moving to a conclusion of fear and, well, being swallowed whole. It isn't particularly great, but it generally works out in entertainment on the basis of one gripping performance and a bit of ingenuity in stretching a cheap production into something with enough curiosity to make it a worthwhile show. It may not have been a tremendous success at the time, but the decades have been more kind to it for pretty easy reasons.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Body and Soul.

Review #1795: Body and Soul.

Cast: 

Paul Robeson (Reverend Isaiah T. Jenkins / His brother Sylvester), Mercedes Gilbert (Sister Martha Jane - Isabelle's Mother), Julia Theresa Russell (Isabelle - the Girl), Lawrence Chenault (Yello-Curley' Hinds - the Phony Reverend's Former Jailmate), Marshall Rogers (Speakeasy proprietor), Lillian Johnson ("Sis" Caline, a Pious Lady), Madame Robinson ("Sis" Lucy, a Pious Lady), Chester A. Alexander (Deacon Simpkins, a Church Elder), and Walter Cornick (Brother Amos, a Church Elder) Written, Directed, and Produced by Oscar Micheaux (#1633 - Within Our Gates)

Review: 

I'm sure you already know that Oscar Micheaux was a distinct man of his time as director. After all, we already saw how well Within Our Gates (1920) went with audiences, serving as the second of his ventures into filmmaking, for which he aimed to tell interesting stories for black audiences. He made over forty features in the span of 29 years, but of the silent portion in his filmography (which he did until 1930), only three survive (Within Our Gates, The Symbol of the Unconquered, Body and Soul). This was adapted from his novel of the same name, as was the case for a number of his films. Of course, the true story to tell is the fact that this is the debut starring role of Paul Robeson. He was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898 to a Presbyterian minister and a descendant of the Bustills. He excelled in both acting and sports as a youth, and he wound up winning a state contest for a scholarship to Rutgers College, which he would attend in 1915. He excelled as a member of the football team, the debate team, and singing and graduated (as with high school, he graduated as valedictorian). He then studied law at the New York University School of Law in 1919 and Columbia Law School in 1920 before making his first venture into acitng into the theater in 1920. In 1921 and 1922, he played football in the freshly-created National Football League for Akron and Milwaukee before he graduated. However, he elected to move into acting as opposed to law due to encountering racism at the firm he was hired to work. It was his wife Eslanda that insisted on driving him towards becoming an actor, for which he would excel with performances such as the 1925 revival of the play The Emperor Jones, and it was his wife that negotiated him into this film (incidentally, the two would star together once in Borderline (1930)). Robeson would do various acting performances in the theater and in film, most notable with Othello and Show Boat (1936) while serving as a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance; until his death in 1976, he dedicated himself to a "worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace and brotherhood" that advocated for several causes (such as the Council on African Affairs) despite dealing with being investigated in the 1950s for his support of certain causes and policies. In total, he acted in a dozen feature films before disputes on the production of the anthology film Tales of Manhattan (1942) with stereotyping caused him to cease association with Hollywood, but he had a long-running career in concert (spent primairly in Europe) that sealed his reputation as a great African American icon of his time.

Robeson did not exactly take kindly to the film in later years, referring to The Emperor Jones (1933) as his true screen debut. Micheaux was a dilligent filmmaker when it came to getting them done with the budget he had that led to a few "mistakes" being kept in the final version of the film that was shown wherever it could be shown for Black audiences (of course, trying to pass a 31-year old as someone's mother despite being just four years older than their on-screen daughter is its own story), complete with distinct intertitles for characters in grammar. If you thought Within Our Gates had tendancies of a soap opera within its attempts to tell a story involving the dual nature of man: specifically a corrupt preacher and the people that are affected by his actions, one where pictures of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington are seen on the wall. Of course, there also is a love triangle involving Robeson playing both the evil preacher and his twin-brother inventor that each have their own trials and tribulations with trying to earn money (and a Bible with money hidden in it!). He may have been a melodrama-man, but he was also a story-teller that wanted to show sensitive topics on screen (lynching was present in Gates, for example), so this isn't too different. You may be wondering just what is with the ending. Well, apparently making a 1925 film about a priest who is portrayed as sinister is just too much for some censor boards, most notably with the New York board, which disagreed with the original nine reel version. With a lack of time to make reshoots, Micheaux had to come up with a quick ending that made the events...a dream, for which the film was now at five reels (a screenplay for the film is not intact, therefore making it hard to see exactly what was lost). Robeson is obviously the highlight of the film, one who gets to engage with the screen for two distinct performances that work out for tremendous effect, with the sly shuffling between the two being interesting enough to show just where the line goes in the pursuit of better living in that time and place. Gilbert isn't forgotten here, however, as she manages well with careful timing that makes her the heart of the film when it comes to well-meaning folks trying to maintain themselves in a world of doubt for folks that certainly valued their Sundays like no other. Russell does fine as the pawn in the middle, wrapped with shaky grace. As a whole, Micheaux and Robeson each ended up getting what was best for them. The director continued to make movies on the circuit with quick drive while the actor got to be involved in the process of what it means to make movies. It should be mentioned that of all the movies Robeson made, this one was the only one made by an black director. In that regard, Body and Soul (1925) is a fair achievement for both of them.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Well, February is here again. It shouldnt surprise you to see Movie Night honor Black History Month for the second year in a row, seeing how the first one turned out. There will be a handful of new and familiar faces seen this month in black stars and directors, and the next film up is Two Gun Man from Harlem.