The Conjure Woman | |
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Directed by | Oscar Micheaux |
Written by | Oscar Micheaux (screenplay) Charles W. Chesnutt (story) |
Produced by | Oscar Micheaux |
Production company | Micheaux Film |
Release date |
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The Conjure Woman is a 1926 silent film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. A race film featuring an African-American cast and catering to an African-American audience, it stars Evelyn Preer and Lawrence Chenault, with support from character actors Peter Verwayen, Alma Sewell and Sidney Easton. It is based on American writer Charles W. Chesnutt's 1899 short story collection of the same name. [1] No print of the film has been located and it is presumed to be a lost film. [2]
Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist, and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South. Two of his books were adapted as silent films in 1926 and 1927 by the African-American director and producer Oscar Micheaux. Following the Civil Rights Movement during the 20th century, interest in the works of Chesnutt was revived. Several of his books were published in new editions, and he received formal recognition. A commemorative stamp was printed in 2008.
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.
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."
African-American folktales are the storytelling and oral history of enslaved African Americans during the 1700s–1900s. Prevalent themes in African-American folktales include tricksters, life lessons, heartwarming tales, and slavery. African Americans created folktales that spoke about the hardships of slavery and told stories of folk spirits that could outwit their slaveholders and defeat their enemies. These folk stories gave hope to enslaved people that folk spirits would liberate them from slavery.
Conjuration or Conjuring may refer to:
Joan the Woman is a 1916 American epic silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc. The film premiered on Christmas Day in 1916. This was DeMille's first historical drama. The screenplay is based on Friedrich Schiller's 1801 play Die Jungfrau von Orleans. This film was considered to be the "first cinematic spectacle about Joan of Arc."
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 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 Desired Woman is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Irene Rich, William Russell and William Collier Jr. It is now considered to be lost. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was based on a story by Darryl F. Zanuck, who was credited under the pseudonym Mark Canfield.
The Leopard Woman is a 1920 American silent adventure romance drama film starring Louise Glaum, House Peters, and Noble Johnson. Directed by Wesley Ruggles and produced by J. Parker Read, Jr., the screenplay was adapted by H. Tipton Steck and Stanley C. Morse based on the novel The Leopard Woman (1916) by Stewart Edward White.
In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects.
The Conjure Woman is a collection of short stories by African-American fiction writer, essayist, and activist Charles W. Chesnutt. First published in 1899, The Conjure Woman is considered a seminal work of African-American literature composed of seven short stories, set in Patesville, North Carolina. A film adaptation, The Conjure Woman (film) was made by Oscar Micheaux.
The Conjuring is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes. It is the inaugural film in The Conjuring Universe franchise. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of haunting. Their purportedly real-life reports inspired The Amityville Horror story and the associated film franchise. The Warrens come to the assistance of the Perron family, who experienced increasingly disturbing events in their newly occupied farmhouse in Rhode Island in 1971.
The Circus Cowboy is a lost 1924 American silent Western film directed by William A. Wellman and produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation.
The Woman Who Walked Alone is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by George Melford and written by John Colton and Will M. Ritchey. The film stars Dorothy Dalton, Milton Sills, E. J. Ratcliffe, Wanda Hawley, Frederick Vroom, Mayme Kelso, and John Davidson. The film was released on June 11, 1922, by Paramount Pictures.
The Hidden Woman is a lost 1922 American silent drama film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Evelyn Nesbit in her final full-length feature film. The film was claimed to be made in 1916 and not released until 1922, but this is impossible since Anne Shirley is a cast member and she was born in 1918. Nesbit's son, Russell Thaw, has a role in the film.
The Conjuring Universe is an American horror franchise and shared universe centered on a series of supernatural horror films. The franchise is produced by New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, and the Safran Company, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The films present a dramatization of the supposed real-life adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent yet controversial cases of haunting. The main series follows their attempts to assist people who find themselves harassed by spirits, while the spin-off films focus on the origins of some of the entities the Warrens have encountered.
The Forbidden Woman is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Paul L. Stein and starring Jetta Goudal, Ivan Lebedeff and Leonid Snegoff. The film is set in French North Africa.
African American cinema evolved at just about the same pace as white cinema, and although the role of Black women in early silent film has only recently begun to receive popular and academic attention, Black women were involved in Black cinema from the very start of American film history. In their own day, Maria P. Williams was called the first Black woman filmmaker for her work on The Flames of Wrath (1923) and Tressie Souders was also honored with the same distinction for her work in A Woman’s Error (1922). Others have argued that that distinction belongs to Madame E. Toussaint Welcome's war documentary Doing Their Bit (1916) or Eloyce King Patrick Gist for Hell Bound Train. What's certain is that Black women were contributing as screenwriters, actors, directors and producers from the earliest days of film.
Maria Priscilla Thurston Williams (1866–1932) was a newspaper editor, film producer, author, and scriptwriter. She is credited as the first African-American woman film producer for the silent crime drama The Flames of Wrath in 1923. A one-time school teacher, Williams had a history of activism, independence and interest in the liberal arts, which led her first to newspapers, then to film production, script-writing and acting and, finally, to memoir with her 1916 book My Work and Public Sentiment, in which she identified herself as a national organizer and speaker with the Good Citizens League, and stated that ten percent of the proceeds would go to suppressing crime among African Americans.