Customer Reviews

Early Black Entertainment in Film

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All these old films from the 30's and 40's, WOW. It's like I struck gold. And at such a modest price? Hours of viewing pleasure. Sometimes the acting is primitive. But, then again, I've watched so called 'Hollywood' films of that era and found them to be primitive. So what.

"Race movies," a genre unique to the United States between 1915 and 1947, were quite popular with black Southern audiences and in Northern industrial cities that had large African American communities. After the successful legal desegregation of the film industry in 1948, this type of movie vanished, literally. Today, only a fifth of the original 500 race films still exist.

EARLY BLACK ENTERTAINMENT offers a cross-section of features directed by such pioneers as Spencer Williams, Bud Pollard and Oscar Micheaux. Set also includes a documentary, old radio program and galleries.


ST. CLAIR DVD multi-packs are reasonably priced, and offer fine quality video/audio transfers of unrestored public domain material. Discs are single-side recorded, plastic storage cases fairly sturdy, movie liner notes appear on box's back cover and most DVDs include bonus items.


Want more? MILL CREEK's budget-priced JAZZ 10 MOVIE PACK offers a half-dozen movies not on this set, plus two batches of vintage pay-per-view "soundies."


Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.

DISC ONE - BLACKS IN FILM
Race Movies: The Popular Art of the Black Renaissance
(5.9) Boy! What a Girl (1947) - Tim Moore/Elwood Smith/Duke Williams/Alan Jackson
(4.3) Moon Over Harlem (1939) - Buddy Harris/Cora Green/Izinetta Wilcox/Earl Gough
(4.3) God's Step Children (1938) - Jacqueline Lewis/Ethel Moses/Alice B. Russell/Trixie Smith/Charles Thompson
(5.4) The Blood of Jesus (1941) - Cathryn Caviness/Spencer Williams/Rogenia Goldthwaite/James B. Jones
BONUS: Poster Gallery

DISC TWO - BLACK WESTERNS
(5.5) The Bronze Buckaroo (1939) - Herb Jeffries/Lucius Brooks/Spencer Williams/Artie Young/The Four Tones
(5.7) Harlem Rides the Range (1939) - Herb Jeffries/Spencer Williams/Lucius Brooks/F.E. Miller/Clarence Brooks/The Four Tones
(5.3) Two Gun Man From Harlem (1938) - Herb Jeffries/Marguerite Whitten/Clarence Brooks/Mantan Moreland/Spencer Williams/Matthew 'Stymie' Beard
(4.6) Look Out Sister (1947) - Louis Jordan/Suzette Harbin/Monte Hawley
BONUS: Gallery - The Cowboy Life

DISC THREE - BLACK MUSICALS
(5.5) Hi-De-Ho (1947) - Cab Calloway/Ida James/Jeni Le Gon
(5.7) Swing! (1938) - Cora Green/Larry Seymour/Hazel Diaz/Alec Lovejoy
(5.1) The Duke Is Tops (1938) - Lena Horne/Ralph Cooper/Laurence Criney
(5.8) Beware (1946) - Louis Jordan/Frank L. Wilson/Emory Richardson
BONUS: The Trumpet Talks (vintage radio show)

This is one of the best collections of the rare black films of the 1930s and 1940s.

First of all, be warned that this is not for everyone. Some of these films are in poor condition and in some cases are more for historial interest than entertainment value. With that said, here goes-

"Boy What Girl" is a really strange film. This features Tim Moore (the beloved "Kingfish" of Amos & Andy) as a cross dresser at a Harlem house party along with Patterson & Jackson (sort of a Black Abbott & Costello) as an illiterate ladlord and the father of the film's heroine. Drum master Gene Krupa shows up for a jam session, but this is not worth seeing more than once. "Moon Over Harlem" deals with a man trying to organize his community against racketeers. Sort of a 1939 version of "New Jack City." "God's Stepchildren," despite its poor cinematography, is one of the best of Oscar Michaeux's sound films. Here, a light skinned black girl named Naomi is left on the doorstep of a goodhearted woman and grows up to be a holy terror who wishes she was white. The final scene is truly haunting and will stay in your mind for years to come! "The Blood of Jesus" is Spencer Williams (Andy of Amos & Andy)'s poor man's "Green Pastures." The low budget tale of a Black woman's journey to redemption, my liking for this film is somewhat personal as my mother saw it when she was a girl in 1941 and used to tell me about it. Fortunately, I was able to show it to her (she's now in her 80s) and this was a great bonding moment as she relived her memories of this.

The 3 Herb Jefferies horse operas are only for hardcore fans of old westerns. Pretty unremarkable, aside from the novelty of having Black casts. However, "2 Gun Man From Harlem," which is in very poor condition, is intersting today only for the presence of Matthew Beard (the beloved "Stymie" of the Little Rascals) and the bug eyed wonder and most popular Black comedian of his time, Mantan Moreland. Two of jazz comedian Louis Jordan's best films are included here. "Beware", which is probably the first film set on a Black college campus, is a comedy where LJ tries to stop a crook from bankrupting his alma mater. Quite funny, and the musical numbers (especially the title song) are splendid! "Look Out Sister" is LJ's antics at a dude ranch in the wild wild west. Writer Odie Hawkins and the singer James Brown have spoken at length at how this film inspired ghetto youngsters at the time and JB has credited this movie with making him want to be an entertainer. Incidentally, LJ's boy sidekick also played "Toby" in Disney's "Song of the South." Jordan's "Reet Petite and Gone" is missing, but it wasn't nearly as good as these two and will not be missed here.

"Hi De Ho" is a Cab Calloway vehicle of the Jiving jazzman's misadventures with gangsters and gun molls. Very entertaining, aside from watching Cab slap his girlfriend in one scene. Oscar Micheaux's "Swing" is a star-is-born tale of an exploited Birmingham woman who tries to become a star. "The Duke Is Tops" (with Edward Kennedy Ellington nowhere to be found) is Lena Horne's film debut. Quite dull except for the performances by vocal group Cats & The Fiddle and The Basin St. Boys, as well as the ultra-sexy (for its time) "African" dance number. "The Trumpet talks" is a late 1940s radio drama about the life of the great Satchmo, who ironically did very few films of this kind.

Overall, pretty good "edutainment" for those who are hep. NOTE-to Louis Jordan fans: The version of "Look Out Sister" included here has a scene of Jordan singing "Roaming Blues" and of the crooked Mack Morgan actually stealing the horses he attempts to frame Jordan over that does not appear in most DVD's of this film