, New York, 1924,
Paul Robeson’s film debut was
made when he was beginning his New York theater career, starring in
plays by Eugene O’Neill and others. It
is one of the few surviving films of the era by Black filmmaker Oscar
Micheaux, whose original themes stood out from the films that were
imitative of White cinematic values. He was forced, by censors, to
re-edit the film, resulting in an uncertain narrative. In the film, Robeson plays a preacher
with a dual personality of virtue and vice, reflecting insight into
contradictions in the Black community.
Switzerland, 1930, Kenneth McPherson
In a border town somewhere in
Europe, two couples—White and Black—intersect with racial values, each
other, and the small town in which they find themselves. Real-life partner Essie
Robeson co-starred with Paul in this experimental film which was never
shown in public theaters. The filmmaker was most concerned with avant
garde film technique and unconventional editing, though one critic who
did notice the film noted that in the character portrayal, “Borderline
is an attempt...to treat the Negro as a sensitive and intelligent
United Artists Release
The Emperor Jones
, New York, 1933,
adaptation of the original play by Eugene O’Neill starring Robeson, The
Emperor Jones presented audiences with an epic story of a Black
man’s rise to success and power that was unheard-of in the
cinema of the time. That the film’s theme seriously challenged
mainstream cinematic taboos is evidenced by the pre-distribution
cutting of a controversial scene of challenge to White authority.
plays Brutus Jones, a young man from the country who gets a chance to
see city lights as a Pullman porter. When his train runs take him to
Harlem, he is seduced by the nightlife, and transforms into a gambler
and womanizer. But after being convicted in the
accidental murder of his best friend, he is imprisoned in a
southern chain gang. It is amid the depiction of the brutal
conditions of the chain gang that the film’s censored scene was lost:
Robeson’s character kills a prison guard after defying his order to
beat a fellow prisoner. After escaping, Brutus winds
up on a small Caribbean island ruled by a Black tyrant.
Through his use of cunning
and charisma, Brutus overcomes enslavement, wins the popular support of
the island’s people, overthrows and supplants the ruler. He then
becomes the Emperor Jones.
Although some Black critics
gently—in deference to Robeson’s great popularity—suggested that the
film’s epilogue depicting O’Neill’s themes of the corruption of power
discredited Blacks’ screen image, the Emperor Jones was overwhelmingly
successful in Harlem, packing the theater with often
standing-room-only crowds. Downtown, it was more modestly received.
Sanders of the River,
London, 1935, London Films
accepted the role of Bosambo during a time when he was living in London
and was engaged in deep explorations of the roots of African culture
through studies of language and music. He felt that if he could
portray the African leader with cultural accuracy and dignity,
he could help audiences— especially Black audiences—to understand and
respect the roots of Black culture. The filmmakers even took an
unusual step towards authenticity by sending a film crew on a
four-month voyage into remote areas of Africa to record traditional
African dances and ceremonies. These would be interwoven with the
After the filming, Robeson was
asked back to the studio for retakes of some scenes.
He discovered that the film’s message had been twisted
during editing; it seems now to justify imperialism. Bosambo was
changed from African leader to servile lackey of British colonial rule.
Robeson complained, “I was roped into the picture because I wanted to
portray the culture of the African people.”
He was so disillusioned by the picture that he
attempted, but failed, to buy back all the prints to prevent it from
Hollywood, 1935, Universal Studios
Essie Robeson made London their home since Paul opened
in the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein stage musical Show Boat. When
Robeson was first offered a part in the screen version, he was enjoying
the superior intellectual and cultural opportunities of London, and was
loath to return to the United States and Hollywood.
But when the studio
accepted his purposefully very high fee for the appearance, the
Robesons traveled to the States, stopping for several concert
performances before spending two months in Hollywood for the filming.
The studio was right to insist
on Robeson. Critics raved about the film, and praised Robeson’s singing
in particular (notably of the theme song, “Ol’ Man River”) as being
worth the cost of the ticket.
Freedom, London, 1936, Hammer-British Lion
Freedom may best represent the opportunity Robeson was looking for to
“give a true picture of many aspects of the life of the colored man in
the West. Hitherto on the screen, he has been characterized or
presented only as a comedy character. This film shows him as a real
man.” As in Sanders of the River, the film called for documentary
scenes of West
African traditional dances and ceremonies, but
this time Robeson obtained a contract giving
him final cut, so that the film’s message would not be changed behind
the doors of the editing room.
plays Zinga, a black dockworker in England with a great baritone
singing voice. He is discovered by an opera impresario, and is
catapulted into great fame as an international opera star. Yet he feels
alienated from his African past, and out of place in England. By
chance, he is informed that an ancestral medallion that he wears is
proof of his lineage to African kings, and he leaves fame and fortune
to take his rightful place of royalty.
Reunited with his people, he plans to improve their
lives by combining the best of western technology with the best of
traditional African ways.
Although the film was not a box
office success in the US, it was notably chosen in 1950 to open the
convention of Ghana’s People’s Party. The ceremonies were presided over
by the future first prime minister of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah,
Robeson’s friend from his London years.
Looks Up, (released
as My Song Goes Forth)
United Kingdom, 1936
does not appear on screen but recorded the prologue and theme song for
Joseph Best’s documentary film about South Africa.
Solomon’s Mines, London/South Africa, 1937
In this film based on the novel
by H. Rider Haggard, Robeson again plays a character who discovers his true identity as a displaced
African king. He returns to Africa and struggles to overcome the
mistrust of his people. Robeson was attracted by the storyline and the
real life scenes from Africa that would be incorporated in the
production. He was even tutored in the Efik language to prepare for his
role. Although the critics did not rave over King Solomon’s Mines, with
many complaining it was over-romanticized, the Black press noted
Robeson’s influence in correcting the film where it tended to veer into
the usual African stereotypes.
(Dark Sands), London / Egypt, 1937,
Robeson considered Jericho one
of his most positive accomplishments in projecting a screen image of a
Black man with courage, honor, self-sacrifice and intelligence who
achieves success and happiness. The
epic film begins as a World War I American troop ship is torpedoed, and
many soldiers are trapped below the deck. Robeson plays Jericho
Jackson, a medical student drafted into the war.
Jericho heroically saves the trapped men, in
defiance of his superior’s orders to abandon ship, but he accidentally
kills the officer in the melee. Despite his heroism, Jericho is
court-martialed for refusing an order. Embittered, he escapes, and an
officer named Captain Mack is held responsible for his escape and
ends up in North Africa, where he meets the Tuareg people. When he uses
his medical skills to heal the sick, the Tuareg welcome Jericho into
their tribe, and he marries and raises a family with them, eventually
becoming their leader. He leads his people to victory over rivals and
brings peace and unity to the region through which the Tuareg trek
annually to trade for salt. When an anthropology film crew’s coverage
of the salt trek is shown in London, Captain Mack spots Jericho
in the film and vows to track him down.
Finally, when the Captain sees what good works
Jericho has done for his people, he relents.
telling of Robeson’s demand for final cut that at this point in the
story, Jericho, homesick, was to agree to help clear the captain’s name
in the United States. After their plane crashes in the desert, Jericho
dies trying to save Captain Mack. Instead, Robeson simply had the movie
end with the captain flying off alone and crashing in the desert.
Fella, London, 1938,
British Lion Studios
Based on the novel Banjo
by Harlem Renaissance writer Claude McKay, Big Fella is set on the
docks and streets of Marseilles, France. Robeson stars in the leading
role, as a street-wise but honest dockworker who struggles with
deep issues of integrity and human values. Elizabeth Welch plays
opposite him as a café singer in love with him. Robeson’s wife, Eslanda
Robeson, appears as the café owner. The movie received high praise,
particularly for the music, featuring Robeson and Welch, and the depth
of character that Robeson achieved in his portrayal of Banjo.
Valley, Wales, 1939, Ealing Studios
on location in the heart of the coal mining region of Wales, Proud
Valley documents the hard realities of Welsh coal miners’ lives.
Robeson’s part is based on the real-life adventures of a Black miner from West Virginia who
drifts to Wales by way of England, searching for work. After two years
of refusing offers from major studios, Robeson saw an opportunity, when
he agreed to appear in this independent production, to strive to
“depict the Negro as he really is—not the caricature he is always
represented to be on the screen.”
Proud Valley, he may have best succeeded in that aim. His character,
David Goliath, initially wins the respect of the very musically
oriented Welsh people through his singing (as did Robeson in real
life). He shares the hardships of their lives, and becomes a working
class hero as he helps to better their working conditions and
ultimately, during a mining accident, sacrifices his life to save
In Proud Valley, Robeson
depicts a kind Black hero never seen in Hollywood, one who fuses his
political and artistic sensibilities in the image of a Black working
man who achieves kinship across boundaries of race and nationality.
Years later, Robeson would remark that, of all his films,
this was his favorite because it showed workers in a positive light.
Frontier Films, New
Robeson not appearing on screen but singing and narrating off-screen,
this combination of a documentary format and staged reenactments
depicts the struggle for human rights in the 1930s against those who
would deny them----the captains of industry and their hired goons and
strikebreakers, and the Ku Klux Klan. It is based on the findings of
the LaFollette-Thomas Senate Civil Liberties Committee’s 1938
investigation of the repression of labor organizing.
Robeson’s final attempt to work
within Hollywood after refusing lucrative film offers for three years,
Tales of Manhattan starred some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The
plot centers on an overcoat stuffed with
dollars, and the impact it has on the lives of people who come to
possess it. The overcoat is eventually
discovered by a southern sharecropper and his wife, played by Robeson
and Ethel Waters. Robeson’s character argues that the money should be
used to build economic independence for the community,
while a scheming preacher undermines his efforts.
Robeson was deeply disappointed
with the film. Although he attempted to change some of the film’s
content during production, in the end he found it “very offensive to my
people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old
plantation tradition.” Some
reviewers noted that the film exposed Blacks’ living conditions under
the sharecropping system, but Robeson was so dissatisfied that he
attempted to buy up all the prints and take the film out of
distribution. Following its release, he held a press conference,
announcing that he would no longer act in Hollywood films because of
roles available to Black actors.
"Paul Robeson: Here I
Stand," a new 2-hour documentary, premiered on PBS on
February 24, 1999.
Robeson: Tribute to an Artist,”
29-minute documentary, narrated by Sidney Poitier, made in 1979, won
Academy Award OSCAR for Best Documentary (Short Subjects).
“The Tallest Tree in Our Forest,” 1977
documentary on Robeson’s life, b&w and color, 86 min., written,
produced and narrated by Gil Nobel.