Scarcity of Roles for People of Color

[Feraud]

Devil in a Blue Dress is a good one but not an all black cast. The same goes for Bamboozled.
How about Cabin in the Sky? I have not seen that one in a while.

 

[HadleyH]

Does anyone have recommendations for the best of the all-black cast pictures?

Scott I think, Hallelujah (1929) King Vidor's first sound film was among the first african-american cast movies produced. Although it is not considered a great movie (there were problems whith sound) it is interesting in film history because of that fact.

 

[jake_fink]

Great thread.

Myrna Loy once asked Daryl Zanuck why, say, a black man with a briefcase couldn't appear as an extra on the courthouse steps instead of in the men's room with a towel over his arm. She thought that even just the image of a black man as a professional rather than as subserviant would serve the culture. And I think she has a point. However successful Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry was, the image of the lethargic, foot dragging, barely conscious, superstitious black man helped to solidfy an image in the viewers' minds that went beyond the particular character of Stepin Fetchit. It supported a stereotype, in other words.

The Separate Cinema Archive has a lot of information on the subject of "race pictures" and is well worth a look. They produced a book a number of years ago that I think may be out of print, but which is still avaiable here and there. Great stuff.

Also, I highly recommend the documentary Classified X in which Melvin Van Peebles takes a seriously not at alll rosy look at the treatment and images of race and black Americans in Hollywood films. It makes a great counterpoint to another film from roughly the same time called Hollywoodism: Jews the Movies and the American Dream, a documentary that looks at the creation/origin of the Hollywood version of so many American myths, but it overstates the role of the moguls and the Hollywood dream factory in creating an image of an egalitarian, free and democratic society and gives them a pretty free ride on the question of race. Otherwise it's a pretty good movie (based on a not so good book).

 

[SamMarlowPI]

Does anyone have recommendations for the best of the all-black cast pictures?

Diary Of A Mad Black Woman
Daddy's Little Girls
Why Did I Get Married?
Jungle Fever(not all black)

 

[scotrace]

Does anyone have recommendations for the best of the all-black cast pictures?

Up through about 1950...?

 

[Feraud]

Also, I highly recommend the documentary Classified X in which Melvin Van Peebles takes a seriously not at alll rosy look at the treatment and images of race and black Americans in Hollywood films.

Thanks for the reminder. I saw some of this on the IFC channel a while ago.

 

[reetpleat]

Regarding typecasting.. Hollywood certainly did typecast white actors as individuals but black actors were/are typecast as a group. A big difference.

Beides that, there is a big diffeence between "aw, I am playing a cowboy again," and "aw gee, I got cast in a bit role as a shuffling servant or doorman again."

 

[reetpleat]

I remember hearing that the black actors,like Bill Bojangles Robinson,who starred in the shirley temple films,were not allowed sleeping accomodation while filming,and had to sleep under the stars and wherever they could find shelter.I do not know if that is true though,or just gossip and rumour,but i have heard it quite a lot over the years from shirley temple fans around my area.Even the children had to sleep rough:rage: if that is true,it is a massive blot on hollywoods history.

I find that hard to believe. While blacks were not able to stay in white hotels, there were wealthy blacks and hotels, retaurants, and other places to accomodate them. I can't imagine a star like Robinson not having a room at a black hotel nearby.

 

[Dagwood]

Up through about 1950...?

Good article from NPR.

Never seen it, but Exile looks good. As the article notes: "The Exile was a 1931 American film by Oscar Micheaux. A drama/romance of the race film genre, it was Micheaux's first feature-length talkie, and the first African American talkie."

 

[reetpleat]

Does anyone have recommendations for the best of the all-black cast pictures?

I don't know that it is the same as the low budget for black audience films, but check out stormy weather, one of the best movies ever. I am not sure if there is a single white person in teh whole film.

 

[jake_fink]

Does anyone have recommendations for the best of the all-black cast pictures?

Check out that Separate Cinema link. Lots of suggestions there.

 

[Lincsong]

Carmen Jones??????

 

[SamMarlowPI]

Up through about 1950...?

now that you say that i have no idea...lol...

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I purchased Stormy Weather, have not yet seen it, but in it is a dance sequence I want to review and show to my mother.

There were two African American tap dancers called The Nicholas Brothers. They have a dance on a staircase in Stormy Weather that Fred Astaire called the greatest dance sequence ever seen in films. I agree with him.

I heard Cabin in the Sky, which I have not seen, was the best. I look forward to seeing it.

A story I will relate from a book on the Oscars was that the early Oscar shows were held in a dinner theatre, can't recall the name of the place. When Hattie McDaniel won her Oscar for Gone With the Wind, the first and, for too many years, the only member of her race to win, she and her party of friends and family had to sit in the back of that restaurant. When I read that, I just seethed. She was type cast as a maid in Hollywood, but I believe she made a goodly number of black films, too.

Others I recall: Ethel Waters, a wonderful character actress was in some very fine films in the late 40's, early 50's. Check out the ahead-of-its-time film, Pinky. Also Member of the Wedding.

Woody Strode, a big, strapping man, who, like Robeson, was a gifted athelete, played gladiators, cowboys, and was a favorite of John Ford, was cast in some of his westerns. If you saw Spartacus, you saw him in a fight to the death with Kirk Douglas.

I am trying to think of others, who were able not to be type cast as porters and maids. Some of the singers and dancers escaped that: Lena Horne, for instance and Robeson. If you ever hear him sing "Ole Man River" in Showboat, you will have heard the best.

karol

 

[The Wolf]

Clarence Brooks was a great black actor in the golden age. He was a wonderful actor of dignity. I watched "Arrowsmith" because Myrna Loy was in and was captivated by Brooks. I recommend the movie. However, he is not a household name and didn't get the amount of of roles I believe he deservered.
For an all black cast film I pick "Green Pastures". It might not age that well but I loved it. Rex Ingram is the lead(s) and is good as always. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson also appears.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[hepkitten]

I'm always... I don't want to say amazed, or astounded, more pleased and happy when I watch Doctor Who. They have multiple nationalities/colors of people in their show. They had an Indian woman playing the Head of PR. Not because they needed a person from India, but because she was the best one for the job.

This reminds me of an interview I once read of Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on the original Star Trek. She got fed up with the narrowness of her role, and decided to quit. She was talked out of it by Dr. Martin Luther King, who asked her to reconsider, pointing out that her character was the first non-stereotyped black character in television.

I found a YouTube video of a brief speech she made, relating this story.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I recall Bill Cosby, who was in I Spy back in the mid-60's played a sidekick to I believe it was Robert Culp. Non-stereotypical, I believe.

One of the earliest black characters I recall on an early 50's TV series was Eddie "Rochester" Anderson who played a manservant to Jack Benny. He had a stereotypical role, but got some of the funniest lines, causing Benny to give the audience "that look."

Are we discussing African Americans or all people of color in Hollywood? Asian Americans were in short supply. I recall Anna May Wong, who usually played mysterious and sometimes sinister roles. Wasn't Charlie Chan played by a white man? If it was a lead, Katherine Hepburn or Louise Rainer got the role.

Then, of course, there are the Native Americans, who, if they were really good roles, got played by white people: Burt Lancaster in Apache, Jeff Chandler in Broken Arrow, Sal Mineo in Tonka. Etc.

Hispanics? I recall the actress Katy Jurado, who was in High Noon, Pedro Armidarez, who was one of John Ford's stock characters in a number of westerns. Anthony Quinn was Mexican and did play a lot of Hispanic roles, as well as Greek (Guns of Navaronne, Zorba the Greek). He won a best supporting actor for Viva Zapata. Who played the leading in that film? Marlon Brando....

karol

 

[Dagwood]

Asian Americans were in short supply.

Keye Luke was great in the Charlie Chan movies. Great actor, great dresser, just great.

 

[Bugsy]

Keye Luke was also a really nice man. I worked with him in summer stock.

 

[reetpleat]

I recall Bill Cosby, who was in I Spy back in the mid-60's played a sidekick to I believe it was Robert Culp. Non-stereotypical, I believe.

One of the earliest black characters I recall on an early 50's TV series was Eddie "Rochester" Anderson who played a manservant to Jack Benny. He had a stereotypical role, but got some of the funniest lines, causing Benny to give the audience "that look."

Are we discussing African Americans or all people of color in Hollywood? Asian Americans were in short supply. I recall Anna May Wong, who usually played mysterious and sometimes sinister roles. Wasn't Charlie Chan played by a white man? If it was a lead, Katherine Hepburn or Louise Rainer got the role.

Then, of course, there are the Native Americans, who, if they were really good roles, got played by white people: Burt Lancaster in Apache, Jeff Chandler in Broken Arrow, Sal Mineo in Tonka. Etc.

Hispanics? I recall the actress Katy Jurado, who was in High Noon, Pedro Armidarez, who was one of John Ford's stock characters in a number of westerns. Anthony Quinn was Mexican and did play a lot of Hispanic roles, as well as Greek (Guns of Navaronne, Zorba the Greek). He won a best supporting actor for Viva Zapata. Who played the leading in that film? Marlon Brando....

karol

Interestingly, many latinos were successful in early hollywood. That was back when three things were the case. Black and white did not show color so much, California was full of Latinos and there was maybe not such separation as now, and thirdly, westerns reflected the reality of the west, including many native and mexicans, not some white world. Also, i suspect that many darker skinned people actually showed up well on early black and white film, so, got work. Of course, they often ahd to change their names.