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".
Blossoms in the Dust is a 1941 American biographical drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Felix Bressart, Marsha Hunt, Fay Holden and Samuel S. Hinds. It tells the story of Edna Gladney, who helped orphaned children find homes and began a campaign to remove the word "illegitimate" from Texas birth certificates, despite the opposition of "good" citizens. The screenplay was by Anita Loos, with a story by Ralph Wheelwright. Some of the important aspects of her life fictionalized in the film are the fact that it was Edna herself who was born out of wedlock; she and Sam eloped on the eve of her marriage to someone else, and they had much more time together before his death than given them in the film.
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".
Stirling Dale Silliphant was an American screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his screenplay for In the Heat of the Night, for which he won an Academy Award in 1967, and for creating the television series Naked City, Perry Mason, and Route 66. Other features as screenwriter include the Irwin Allen productions The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.
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 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.
The 19th Academy Awards were held on March 13, 1947, honoring the films of 1946. The top awards portion of the ceremony was hosted by Jack Benny.
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 Gunsaulus Mystery is a 1921 American silent race film directed, produced, and written by Oscar Micheaux. The film was inspired by events and figures in the 1913–1915 trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan. The film is now believed to be lost. Micheaux remade the film 1935 as Murder in Harlem.
The Brute is a 1920 silent race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. No print of the film is known to exist and the production is believed to be a lost film. The original version of the film included a scene where the boxer defeats a white rival, but Micheaux was forced to remove the scene by censors.
Deceit is a 1923 American silent black-and-white film. It is a conventional melodrama directed by Oscar Micheaux. Like many of Micheaux's films, Deceit casts clerics in a negative light. Although the film was shot in 1921, it was not released until 1923. It is not known whether the film currently survives, which suggests that it is a lost film.
Norman Studios, also known as Norman Film Manufacturing Company is a former American film studio in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded by Richard Edward Norman, the studio produced silent films featuring African-American casts from 1919 to 1928. The only surviving studio from the period of early filmmaking in Jacksonville, its facilities are now the Norman Studios Silent Film Museum.
Birthright is a 1938 American drama film directed, co-produced and co-written by Oscar Micheaux and starring Carman Newsome. This is a talkie remake of Micheaux's 1924 silent film of the same name; both were adapted from white author T. S. Stribling's eponymous 1922 novel. Starring J. Homer Tutt, Micheaux's 1924 film was highly controversial for its graphic depiction of racism. The film is now considered lost.
Ethel Moses was an American stage and film actress, and dancer. She was billed as "the black Jean Harlow". Moses is best known for working in films by Oscar Micheaux.
The Broken Violin is an American silent film directed by Oscar Micheaux, released in 1928.
Ten Nights in a Barroom is an American film released in 1926. Directed by Roy Calnek and starring Charles Gilpin, 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.
Brown Gravy is a 1929 American comedy film with an African American cast. William Watson directed the Al Christie production. It was among the early "talkie" films released with African American casts. Octavus Roy Cohen wrote the story, part of a series he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post adapted to film in collaboration with Christie. The film's thin plot includes themes addressing religion, fraternal organizations, con men, and family life.
The Frederick Douglass Film Company was an early American film production company in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was established in 1916, soon after the pioneering Lincoln Motion Picture Company, by prominent African-American business and professional men from New Jersey. The intent of the founders was to counter anti-African-American films such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and to improve race relations. It was named after the African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The Midnight Ace is a 1928 American crime film. Abe DeComathiere, Mabel Kelly and Oscar Roy Dugas starred. The film was directed by John H. Wade for Swan Micheaux's Dunbar Film Company. Swan Micheaux was Oscar Micheaux's brother. Swan had worked for Oscar before a falling out over his management of finances. Swan left and formed the Dunbar film company but it only made this film.
