| The Betrayal | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Oscar Micheaux |
| Written by | Oscar Micheaux |
| Produced by | Oscar Micheaux |
| Starring | Leroy Collins Verlie Cowan Myra Stanton |
| Cinematography | Marvin W. Spoor |
| Distributed by | Astor Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 183 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English language |
The Betrayal is a 1948 American race film written, produced, and directed by Oscar Micheaux. He adapted it from his 1943 novel The Wind From Nowhere.
Martin Eden is a successful African-American farmer in South Dakota. He is in love with Deborah Stewart, but he believes that she is white and that she would not be interested in him. He is unaware that Deborah also loves him. Martin goes to Chicago to seek out a wife. After an unsuccessful date with a cabaret singer, he reconnects with an ex-girlfriend who introduces him to Linda. They fall in love and marry, and then return to Martin’s farm. The couple become parents, but their happiness is short-lived when Linda’s pathologically jealous father convinces her that Martin is homicidal. She flees the farm with their child and returns to Chicago. Martin tracks her down in the city, but Martin is shot by Linda during a fight. In South Dakota, Deborah discovers she is African-American. She travels to Chicago and meets Linda, who agrees to divorce Martin so he can marry Deborah. Linda also gives her child to Deborah to raise. Martin and Deborah return to South Dakota and Linda kills her father in revenge for his role in destroying her marriage. [1]
The Betrayal was adapted by Micheaux from his novel The Wind From Nowhere (1943), although the plot regarding racial identities in rural South Dakota was borrowed from The Homesteader (1919), Micheaux’s first film. [1] The Betrayal marked Micheaux’s return to filmmaking after an eight-year absence following the release of The Notorious Elinor Lee (1940). [2]
Micheaux shot The Betrayal at a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, [3] with location filming in Chicago. [4]
Micheaux named his male lead Martin Eden in honor of the eponymous hero of the Jack London novel. Leroy Collins, a non-professional actor, was cast in the role when he came to the Chicago set seeking work as a stagehand and was spotted by one of Micheaux’s assistants. This was Collins’ first and only film appearance. [4] Collins is now a retired Chicago Public Schools administrator. [5]
Myra Stanton, who played the role of Deborah Stewart, had modeled since the age of five. She had appeared in Ebony magazine in her teenage years and had only acted in school plays when Micheaux's wife, Alice B. Russell, called Stanton's mother with an invitation to audition for the film. Collins and Stanton fell in love during the filming and married soon after the film was done. The couple divorced four years later. Stanton is now a retired teacher. [5]
The Betrayal was self-financed by Micheaux, [4] and the director’s cut ran 195 minutes. Twelve minutes were cut for the film’s commercial release. [1]
The Betrayal was the first race film to have its premiere in a Broadway venue in New York City, with reserved-seat screenings at the Mansfield Theatre. [6] Reviews of the film were overwhelmingly negative, with The New York Times complaining of "sporadically poor photography and consistently amateurish performances" within a story that "contemplates at considerable length the relations between Negroes and whites as members of the community as well as partners in marriage." [4] Box Office also panned the film, noting "sincerity of purpose is perhaps the only redeeming feature of this all-Negro feature." [7] The African-American media was also hostile, with the Chicago Defender criticizing the film as "a preposterous, tasteless bore". [8]
The Betrayal was the last film directed by Micheaux, who died in 1951. No print of The Betrayal is known to exist, and it is considered a lost film, although the script can be found in the New York State Archives (Motion Picture Scripts Collection) in Albany, New York. [8]
Deborah Jane Trimmer CBE, known professionally as Deborah Kerr, was a British actress. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first person from Scotland to be nominated for any acting Oscar. Kerr was known for her roles as elegant, ladylike but also sexually repressed women that deeply yearn for sexual freedom.
Within Our Gates is a 1920 American silent race drama film produced, written and directed by Oscar Micheaux. The film portrays the contemporary racial situation in the United States during the early twentieth century, the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration of blacks to cities of the North and Midwest, and the emergence of the "New Negro".
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (; was an American 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.
Body and Soul is a 1925 race film produced, written, directed, and distributed by Oscar Micheaux and starring Paul Robeson in his motion picture debut. In 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Evelyn Preer, was an African American pioneering screen and stage actress, and jazz and blues singer in Hollywood during the late-1910s through the early 1930s. Preer was known within the Black community as "The First Lady of the Screen."
The Exile is a 1931 American pre-Code film directed by Oscar Micheaux with choreography by Leonard Harper. A drama-romance of the race film genre, The Exile was Micheaux's first feature-length sound film, and the first African-American sound film. Adapted from Micheaux's first novel The Conquest (1913), it the film shares some autobiographical elements; for example, Micheaux spent several years as a cattle rancher in an otherwise all-white area of South Dakota as does the film's central character Jean Baptiste.
The Homesteader (1919) is a lost black-and-white silent film by African-American author and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. The film is based on his novel inspired by his experiences.
Alice Burton Russell was an African-American actress, producer, and the wife of director Oscar Micheaux. She appeared in several films directed by her husband.
Isaac Lolette Jones was an American film producer and actor. In June 1953, he became the first Black American graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and, Television and the first Black American to serve as a producer on a major motion picture.
God's Step Children is a 1938 American drama film directed by Oscar Micheaux and starring Jacqueline Lewis. The film is inspired by a combination of elements shared from two previously released Hollywood productions, Imitation of Life and These Three.
Boy! What a Girl! is a 1947 American race film directed by Arthur H. Leonard and starring Tim Moore, with guest appearances by the Brown Dots, Slam Stewart, Sid Catlett and Gene Krupa.
The Notorious Elinor Lee is a 1940 race film directed, written, and co-produced by the African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.
A Daughter of the Congo is a 1930 American race film directed, written and produced by Oscar Micheaux. The film is loosely based on the novel The American Cavalryman (1917), by African-American novelist and playwright Henry Francis Downing. It is considered a lost film.
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.
Veiled Aristocrats is a 1932 American pre-Code race film written, directed, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. The film deals with the theme of "passing" by mixed-race African Americans to avoid racial discrimination. It is a remake of The House Behind the Cedars (1927), based on a novel by the same name published in 1900 by Charles W. Chesnutt. Micheaux may have borrowed the new title from a 1923 novel by Gertrude Sanborn.
The Dungeon is a 1922 race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux, considered the African-American Cecil B. DeMille due to his prolific output of films during the silent era, one of his greatest works being Body and Soul (1924). The Dungeon was his first horror effort, an early blaxploitation take on the Bluebeard legend.
The Symbol of the Unconquered is a 1920 silent "race film" drama produced, written and directed by Oscar Micheaux. It is Micheaux's fourth feature-length film and along with Within Our Gates is among his early surviving works. The Symbol of the Unconquered was made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and released by Micheaux on November 29, 1920.
Underworld is a 1937 gangster film directed by Oscar Micheaux, about a recent graduate from an all-black college who moves from the American South to Chicago and gets swept into the criminal underworld. The film was adapted from the short story "Chicago After Midnight" by Edna Mae Baker. Among its stars are Ethel Moses, a Micheaux regular, and Oscar Polk, best known for his appearance in Gone with the Wind two years later.
The Spider's Web is a 1926 American film directed by Oscar Micheaux which stars Evelyn Preer. It was remade in 1932 as The Girl from Chicago.
African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans. Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences. The production team and director were sometimes also African American. More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline.
