Tag: Silent

Regeneration

Release Date:  12/25/1923
Genre:  Action/Drama
Rating:  NR
Director:  Richard E. Norman
Studio(s):  Norman Film Mfg. Co.
B&W
Silent

Cast:  Stella Mayo (Violet Daniels), M.C. Maxwell (Jack Roper), Alfred Norcom, Charlie Gaines, R.L. Brown, Clarence Rucker, Steve Reynolds.

Story:  After a widowed sea captain dies he leaves his only daughter, Violet Daniels, a map detailing the location of buried treasure on an unknown south seas island.  Violet and Jack Roper leave on his fishing schooner, the “Anna Bell,” to find the treasure. During the voyage the ship’s mate, Knife Hurley, attempts to steal the map and there is a fight involving the crew he has recruited from the scum of the waterfront. The ship is set on fire, and Knife escapes in the only lifeboat with the map and his crew. Violet and Jack are left to die on the burning boat, however, they survive on a raft they build and after days of drifting, hungry and thirsty, they arrive at an uninhabited island. They name the island Regeneration and begin life anew. Sometime later, Knife and his crew land on Regeneration, which turns out to be the island on which the treasure is buried.  Eventually Knife is defeated.

Notes:  Contemporary information about the exact conclusion of the film has not been located. The movie was a hit, not just with black audiences but with white patrons, too, as a benefit from director and founder of Norman Studios, Richard E. Norman’s unique promotional methods. In particular, Norman encouraged theaters to fill their lobbies with sand to draw potential customers in. Unfortunately, no known full copies of Regeneration exist. However, Kino Lorber restored an 11-minute portion of the second reel, archived in the Library of Congress, though video remains largely obscured by nitrate decomposition.  Sources:  tcm.com, daaracarchive.org.  Photos:  imdb.com.

Preview Clip

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The House Behind The Cedars

Release Date:  12/6/1924
Genre:  Drama
Director:  Oscar Micheaux
Studio(s):  Micheaux Film Corp.
Running Time:  Unknown
Silent
Black & White

Cast:  Shingzie Howard (Rena Walden), Andrew Bishop (George Tryon), Lawrence Chenault (John Walden), Alma Sewell, William Crowell, Douglas Griffin, Oliver Hill.

Story:  Rena, a beautiful, mixed-race woman who “passes” as white, receives a proposal from an aristocratic white millionaire who has fallen in love with her. Rena accepts without revealing the secret of her racial background. Unhappy, she returns to her former lover, Frank Fowler, a black man who has risen to power “despite his color”.  She tells him that although she has fooled the public, she has not fooled herself.

Details:  The House Behind the Cedars, was adapted by Oscar Micheaux from the novel of the same name by Charles Chestnutt, published by installments in the Chicago Defender. Although the film was based on Chestnutt’s novel, Micheaux capitalized on a timely news story by adding a top line to the billing which read, “The Rhinelander Case.” This referred to the 1925 Rhinelander v. Rhinelander trial, which involved a light-skinned, mixed-race woman named Alice Jones, who had married a wealthy white man named Kip Rhinelander. Rhinelander attempted to annul their marriage after his disapproving parents threatened to disinherit him; Micheaux took advantage of the similarities between the news story and his film to boost ticket sales, as noted in the December 2, 1925 issue of Variety, which announced that a new short film called The Rhinelander Case was soon to be released by the Bejack Film Co.

This film is considered lost.

Source:  AFI Catalog (catalog.afi.com).

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 The Bull Dogger

Release Date:  1921/1922
Silent
Black & White
Genre:  Western
Director:   Richard E. Norman
Studio(s):  Norman Film Manufacturing Company
Running Time:  50 mins.

Cast:  Bill Pickett, Bennie Turpin, Anita Bush, Steve Reynolds

Details:  The Bull-Dogger was a feature-length Western starring real-life African American cowboy Bill Pickett.

An excerpt from the Exhibitor’s Herald, states “A virile story of the golden west, featuring Bill Pickett, the Black hero of the Mexican bull ring, in death defying feats of courage and skill, such as wild horse racing, roping and tying wild steers.  The picture also includes fancy and trick riding by Black cowboys and cowgirls and bull dogging and throwing with their teeth, the wildest steers on the Mexican border. This is the first feature picture of its kind, and proves conclusively that the Black cowboy is capable of doing anything the white cowboy does.” – excerpt from the Exhibitor’s Herald.

This film is considered lost, only fragments survive.

Notes:  The film was produced by Norman Film Manufacturing Company, a Jacksonville, FL based company headed by Richard E. Norman, a white filmmaker who catered to black audiences.  Shooting took place in and around Wellington, Okmulgee, Oklahoma City and Boley, Oklahoma, as noted in the February 27, 1922 Vicksburg Evening Post, which advertised screenings that day and the next at the Princess Theatre in Vicksburg, MS.  An item in the same issue noted that Boley, OK, was an “all-colored city.”

An article in the February 1997 Texas Monthly stated that Bill Pickett was fifty years old at the time of production. Publicity for The Bull-Dogger quoted U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt on the film’s star: “Bill Pickett’s name will go down in Western history as being one of the best trained ropers and riders the West has produced.”  Sources:  daarac.org; tcm.com; American Film Institute catalog; Photo Sources:  daarac.org; Wikipedia.

Movie Clip:

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Spitfire

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.

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The Schemers

Release Date:  8/19/1922
Genre:  Drama
Director:  Unknown
Studio(s):  Reol Production Corp.
Running Time:  Unknown
Silent
Black & White

Cast:  Edna Morton, G. Edward Brown, Lawrence Chenault, Walter Thomas, Bob Slater, Orma Crosby.

Synopsis:   Paul Jackson, a black research chemist with a drug company, is close to success in his attempt to develop a chemical substitute for gasoline. Juan Bronson, who is the private secretary of John Davidson, the president of the company, conspires with Miguel Anderson to steal Paul’s formula. Believing Paul to be carrying the formula, Bronson and Anderson kidnap him, but the papers are not on his person. Paul manages to call Isobel Benton, his sweetheart, and instructs her to go to his laboratory for the papers. Anderson overhears the conversation and also goes there, but Isobel outwits him and gets away with the formula. Anderson then frames Paul for the theft of some other important formulas, and Paul gives his formula back to Isobel for safekeeping. Anderson abducts Isobel, and Paul rescues her with the help of Davidson and a detective. Isobel proves Paul’s innocence, and the detective tells Davidson that Bronson and Anderson are notorious criminals, wanted by a South American government.

Source(s):  TCM; DAARAC; IMDB.

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Easy Money

Release Date:  3/29/1922
Genre:  Drama
Rating:  NR
Director:  Unknown
Studio(s):  Reol Productions Corp.
Silent
Black & White

Cast:  Sherman H. Dudley (Andy Simpson), Edna Morton (Margie Watkins), H. L. Pryor,  Inez Clough,  Alex K. Shannon, Percy Verwayen.

Synopsis:  Andy Simpson, constable, blacksmith and all-round mechanic of Millbrook, a thrifty little southern town, is looked upon as slow, plodding, and lacking in ambition by all save Margie Watkins, his sweetheart and daughter of the bank president. Margie, however, becomes attracted to J. Overton Tighe (a partner of James Bradford, notorious promoter of “wildcat” investments), who is newly arrived in town in an expensive car. Despite Andy’s warnings, the townspeople eagerly buy shares in a phony stock promoted by Tighe. Mrs. Watkins even persuades her husband to invest some of the bank’s funds in the enterprise. Even after he finds conclusive evidence, Andy hesitates to arrest Tighe, for an arrest would mean the ruin of Margie’s father. Margie, apparently disregarding Andy’s advice, continues her affair with Tighe, and they become engaged. Tighe finds oil on Andy’s land and buys it for a song. Andy finally exposes Tighe’s real business in Millbrook (which is more serious than swindling), arrests Tighe, and in the end turns the tables on the shrewd promoter and himself gets the easy money.

Alternate Synopsis:  He was poor. A rich man was courting his girl. He discovered the fake stock scheme of his rival. He exposes the plot and became the man of the hour. Then he turned the tables on the rich man and won back his sweetheart. See the exciting raid on the stock gambler’s house. See the sensational leap from a tree to a speeding automobile. See the thrilling rescue of the banker’s daughter from death. See the triumph of a small-town constable in the whirlwind climax of ‘Easy Money’.  Source(s):  TCM; DAARAC.

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