I used to think that "Cabin in the Sky" (1943) was the first all-black-cast Hollywood musical, then I thought that "Green Pastures" (1936) was. Now I think that "Hallelujah!" (1929) was. In that it was released in the first year of the sound era, I don't think that I am going to have to correct the priority again. I suppose that since much of the music is spirituals and church music (notably, "Give me that old time religion"), an argument could be made that it is not a musical. It certainly is not a musical comedy.

The music is set within a very creaky melodrama about a muscular cotton-picker, Zekial Johnson (Daniel L. Haynes) who is mesmerized by the shimmying dancing of a "high-yaller gal," Chick (singer-dancer Nina Mae McKinney). She leads him on and gets him to gamble his earnings from the cotton-picking season (a hundred dollars) with her confederate, the shifty gambler "Hot Shot" (William Fountaine). Hot Shot does not really gamble, since he switches to loaded dice after letting the mark win at first.

After losing his money, Zekial is enraged and in a wild shot slays his younger brother "Spunk" (Everett McGarrity). After a prison sentence breaking rocks, Zekial becomes a preacher, a very successful one, whose family profits visibly from his ministry. In a parade in which Zeke is playing Christ riding on a donkey, Chick and Hot Shot bait him, and she continues to call out sarcasm in the outdoor revival meeting, but the orgiastic revival leads to Chick accepting Jesus, being baptized. I don't recall a wedding, but then Chick is living with Zeke, but two-timing him with Hot Shot while Zeke is at work.

When Chick runs away with Hot Shot, she falls out of the car that Zeke is shooting at (whether a shot hit her is not clear to me, and I watched the sequence twice) and dies in his arms. And then there's more choral singing.

I can't say that I was impressed with "the black Clara Bow" (McKinney), and the plot (which I have recapitulated) is completely formulaic Pandora and p_____-whipped sap. She and everyone else use exaggerated silent-film pantomime of emotions. (As did Garbo in her first talkie, "Anna Christie," as I verified last night).

Aside from historical interest, what the movie has going for it is fine singing (Haynes and the Dixie Jubilee Singers) and impressive black-and-white cinematography of Gordon Avil (who also shot "The Champ" and "The Big House"). The bulky equipment for early sound movies made shooting on location very difficult, and it looks to me that much of the dialogue (and singing) was synchronized later rather than recorded. The sound has not been well conserved, and there is a steady, relatively loud hiss throughout.

The strong visuals of the movie no doubt owes much to director King Vidor (who received an Academy Award nomination for directing "Hallelujah"). "Hallelujah" has a silent-movie lyricism (interspersed with stilted dialogue and a totally hackneyed plot) and some of the ability to film crowds that made "The Big Parade" Vidor's masterpiece (released in 1925). Vidor went on to make some of the tawdriest "women's pictures" including "Ruby Gentry" and "Beyond the Forest" (with Bette Davis's famed "What a dump!") and the wildly uneven 1956 version of "War and Peace."

---

This is yet another contribution to this year's Black "History" Month writeoff, hosted by Brendan2.

P.S. The musical that was given the best picture Oscar for the year, "Broadway Melody" is also creaky and melodramatic. Its soundtrack has been better conserved than that of "Hallelujah," though the singing in "Broadway Melody" is very bland.


Recommended:
No