Oscar Micheaux

One of Oscar Micheaux's final films and his last fully realized melodrama. Nightclub singer Elsie Bellwood (Edna Mae Harris) refuses to entertain her boss's wealthy patrons and is framed for the murder of her own aunt; her loyal boyfriend Benjamin (Carman Newsome), a law student, gives up his career plans to clear her name. Robert Earl Jones — father of James Earl Jones — plays the detective whose "lying lips" testimony is central to the frame-up. Shot quickly in Harlem, it is Micheaux's familiar mix of courtroom drama, nightclub numbers, and moral instruction for Black audiences. Its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime

The earliest surviving feature by Oscar Micheaux, the most important Black filmmaker of the silent era, was made in direct answer to *The Birth of a Nation*. Schoolteacher Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer) travels north to raise funds for an impoverished Southern school, and the film unfolds her past in flashbacks — culminating in an unflinching lynching sequence that depicts the racial violence Griffith's film celebrated. Made for Black audiences and frequently cut by censors who feared it would provoke unrest, it survives only in a single print rediscovered in Spain in the 1970s. It was inducted into the National Film Registry. Published in 1920, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

One of Oscar Micheaux's final films and his last fully realized melodrama. Nightclub singer Elsie Bellwood (Edna Mae Harris) refuses to entertain her boss's wealthy patrons and is framed for the murder of her own aunt; her loyal boyfriend Benjamin (Carman Newsome), a law student, gives up his career plans to clear her name. Robert Earl Jones — father of James Earl Jones — plays the detective whose "lying lips" testimony is central to the frame-up. Shot quickly in Harlem, it is Micheaux's familiar mix of courtroom drama, nightclub numbers, and moral instruction for Black audiences. Its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime

The earliest surviving feature by Oscar Micheaux, the most important Black filmmaker of the silent era, was made in direct answer to *The Birth of a Nation*. Schoolteacher Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer) travels north to raise funds for an impoverished Southern school, and the film unfolds her past in flashbacks — culminating in an unflinching lynching sequence that depicts the racial violence Griffith's film celebrated. Made for Black audiences and frequently cut by censors who feared it would provoke unrest, it survives only in a single print rediscovered in Spain in the 1970s. It was inducted into the National Film Registry. Published in 1920, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent