Release Date: 7/24/1922
Genre: Drama
Director: Unknown
Studio(s): Reol Productions Corp.
Running Time: Unknown
Cast: Edna Morton, Lawrence Chenault, George Edward Brown, Daisy Martin, Mabel Young, Sam Cook, Edward Williams.
Synopsis: Guy Rogers, the son of a well-known publisher, sets out to prove his father’s racist critics wrong by putting Booker T. Washington’s philosophy into practice. He goes to a little Maryland Hills town where through his efforts a school and a library are built. He falls in love with Ruth Hill, whose recently widowed father, an ex-schoolteacher, is killed after being involved in horse thievery. “Buck” Bradley, the local dealer in hay and feed, who put Ruth’s father up to the crime, has been made her guardian, and he beats up Guy when he tries to defend her. She nurses Guy back to health, love blooms, and they marry.
Alternative Synopsis: A young colored novelist has written a novel dealing with colored folks, but is told by his by publisher that it lacks the aura of reality because he has not lived among the lowly folk about whom he attempts to write. In search of such experience, he goes to a little Maryland settlement and there meets the daughter of a farmer who, by reason of her quick temper, has been nicknamed “Spitfire.” Her father is in the clutches of a gang of horse thieves headed by Bradley, and it is the rounding up of the gang and the love that springs up between the young novelist and the country lass that provide the theme. Source(s): TCM; DAARAC; IMDB.
In 1955, Emmett Till was just 14 years old when he was lynched in Mississippi, after being accused of flirting with or whistling at a white woman. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted, drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till became an icon of the civil rights movement, due in part to the unrelenting efforts of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, a major face of racial justice, following her son’s death, devoting her life to the issue until her own passing in 2003. Recently, several projects to bring Emmett’s tragic story to the screen have been announced, each based on different source material.
Another project is ABC’s Women of the Movement, a six-episode limited series focusing on Mamie Till Mobley, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son, following his brutal death. The series, from writer Marissa Jo Cerar and a producing team that includes Jay-Z, Will Smith and Aaron Kaplan, is set to premiere in 2021. Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Old Guard, Shots Fired) is set to direct the first episode of the series, inspired by the book Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery S. Anderson. Women of the Movement is being written/exec produced by Cerar and executive produced by Jay-Z, Jay Brown and Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith of Roc Nation; Will Smith and James Lassiter of Overbrook Entertainment; Aaron Kaplan, Dana Honor and Michael Lohmann from Kapital Entertainment; Rosanna Grace of Serendipity Film Group; Alex Foster and John Powers Middleton of The Middleton Media Group; and David Clark at Mazo Partners. Kapital Entertainment is the studio.
Cedric Joe has landed the coveted role of Emmett Till in the limited series. Joe, who will also appear in the upcoming Space Jam revamp, won the role of Till following a nationwide search to find a young African-American actor who could embody the tragic character. Adrienne Warren, fresh off her Tony nomination for Tina: The Tina Turner Musical will headline as Mamie Till-Mobley. Niecy Nash will play Alma, Emmett Till’s grandmother. After Emmett’s 1955 murder in, a young grandmother who had been like a second mother to Emmett, fought to protect her family in Chicago while her daughter Mamie traveled the country seeking justice in Emmett’s name. A force of nature, Alma was Mamie’s rock in the face of unbelievable tragedy.
Black Cinema Connection 