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Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled by black filmmakers, Micheaux is regarded as the first major African-American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race films, and has been described as "the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century". He produced both silent films and sound films.
Evelyn Preer, was a pioneering American stage and screen actress and jazz and blues singer of the 1910s through the early 1930s. Preer was known within the black community as "The First Lady of the Screen."
The Scar of Shame is a silent film shot in the winter of 1927 and released in April 1929. It is a silent film melodrama featuring black actors and was written for a predominantly black audience. It premiered from April 13–17, 1929 in the M&S Douglas Theatre in New York City. Its second screening ran from April 15–20, 1929 at Gibson's Theatre, Philadelphia.
The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produced. Of these, fewer than one hundred remain. Because race films were produced outside the Hollywood studio system, they were largely forgotten by mainstream film historians until they resurfaced in the 1980s on the BET cable network. In their day, race films were very popular among African-American theatergoers. Their influence continues to be felt in cinema and television marketed to African Americans.
Lawrence Chenault was an American vaudeville performer and silent film actor. He appeared in approximately 24 films between years 1920 and 1934; most of his performances were in films directed by pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. His brother, Jack Chenault, was also a film actor.
The House Behind the Cedars is a 1927 silent race film directed, written, produced and distributed by the noted director Oscar Micheaux. It was loosely adapted from the 1900 novel of the same name by African-American writer Charles W. Chesnutt, who explored issues of race, class and identity in the post-Civil War South. No print of the film is known to exist, and it is considered lost. Micheaux remade the film in 1932 under the title Veiled Aristocrats.
The Colored Players Film Corporation, also known as The Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, was an independent silent film production company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Primarily founded by David Starkman and Sherman H. Dudley in 1926, the film company for the most part made silent melodramatic films that featured all African American casts. During its brief time operating, the production company released four films, including A Prince of His Race (1926), a remake of Timothy Shay Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1926) with an all black cast, Children of Fate (1927), and finally The Scar of Shame (1929). Of the four films the company produced only Ten Nights in a Bar Room and The Scar of Shame remain extant. Shingzie Howard was one of its stars.
David Starkman (1885-c.1947) was an Austrian immigrant to the USA who helped found Colored Players Film Corporation, an independent silent film studio. He wrote and produced the film company's most famous film The Scar of Shame.
Easy Street is a 1930 American film by Oscar Micheaux, an African American filmmaker. It features an African American cast. Known as the last silent achievement in his filmography, the film is considered lost. The plot reportedly revolved around a group of con artists trying to seize the savings of an old man.
Max Asher, born Max Ascher, was an actor whose career spanned the early silent film era to talkies in the early 1930s. His career began on stage. He appeared in various comedic shorts. He was 5'9" and more than 200 pounds. In the 1920s he transitioned to character actor roles.
Cleo Desmond was an American actress and vaudeville performer who had a long career on the stage and screen.
The Spider's Web is a 1926 Oscar Micheaux film starring Evelyn Preer. It was remade in 1932 as The Girl from Chicago.
The Broken Violin is an American silent film directed by Oscar Micheaux, released in 1928.
Elcors "Shingzie" Howard was an actress in the U.S. She appeared in several Oscar Michaux films. She also worked for the Colored Players Film Corporation.
Andrew S. Bishop (1894–1959) was an actor on stage and screen. He and Cleo Desmond drew adoring fans to their theatrical performances. He starred in several of Oscar Michaux's African American films.
Tempation is a 1935 film by Oscar Micheaux. The storyline depicts the corrupting influence of carnal desires. The National Museum of African American History and Culture has a lobby card for the film advertising "a great colored cast". Ethel Moses has her film debut in the film as a naive woman who models nude and struggles to fend off opportunistic men while becoming part of a criminal underworld The film made her a fully fledged star.
Carman Newsome was an African-American actor, musician and band conductor in the United States. His work includes leading roles in five Oscar Micheaux films.
Ten Nights in a Barroom is an American film released in 1926. The film had a temperance theme and an African American cast. It followed on Timothy Shay Arthur's 1854 novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There and William W. Pratt's play, as well as earlier film adaptations albeit with white casts. A man's drinking causes him to lose money, his business, and his daughter. The film has been restored and is archived at the Library of Congress. Charles Gilpin stars. The film was released during the Prohibition era. Roy Calnek directed.
Historical Feature Films was a film production company in the United States. It was established in 1915 and produced at least 4 films. The company's films featured African American casts and included bigoted tropes and stereotypes that demeaned the characters. The studio's films were re-released byy Ebony Film Corporation.
Edna Morton was an American actress who was in films in the 1920s. She starred in mainly race films most of them produced by Reol Productions. Her most notable films being Spitfire (1922), Easy Money (1922), and The Call of His People (1921). She was also in a film by Oscar Micheaux called A Son of Satan (1924). She is known to have been in ten films in total. She was referred to as "the colored Mary Pickford".
References
- ↑ Musser, Charles; Gaines, Jane Marie; Bowser, Pearl (March 28, 2016). Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253021557 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Wartts, Adrienne. "Lucia Lynn Moses (ca. 1906- )".
- ↑ Smith, Jessie Carney (December 17, 2010). Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313357978 – via Google Books.
- ↑ McCann, Bob (December 21, 2009). Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. McFarland. ISBN 9780786458042 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Letter: Macon, Georgia to the Colored Players Film Corporation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1927 Oct. 28 - Digital Library of Georgia". dlg.usg.edu.
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