Parky at the Pictures (DVD 22/12/2016)

The focus rightly falls on Oscar Micheaux, who began making films after publishing a series of successful novels. Often regarded as a riposte to DW Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, Within Our Gates (1920) examines the status of the black population in the aftermath of the Great War and uses the relationships between mixed-race teacher Evelyn Preer and soldier fiancé James D. Ruffin, envious rival Flo Clements, benefactor Mrs Evelyn and doctor Charles D. Lucas to expose the iniquities of prejudice, racial betrayal and the North-South divide. The earliest surviving film by an African-American director, this may feel crudely melodramatic almost a century after it was made. But the sequences depicting Preers's assault by Grant Gorman (a brutish bigot with a grim secret) and the flashback lynching of her adoptive sharecropper parents, William Starks and Mattie Peters, have lost none of their power to appal.

As a self-taught film-maker operating on shoestring budgets, Micheaux may not have been a master craftsman. But he had the courage to tackle themes that Hollywood refused to contemplate and made black audiences feel as though someone understood the travails they endured on a daily basis. In The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), mixed-race gold mine heiress Iris Hall is denied access to Lawrence Chenault's `whites only' hotel in Oristown, South Dakota and finds sanctuary with prospector Walker Thompson, whose life she saves when he is targeted by the Black Knights of the Cross after oil is discovered on his land.

Micheaux turned to one of his own novels for Body and Soul (1925), which marked the screen debut of Paul Robeson, as estranged twin brothers Isaiah and Sylvester Jenkins. Posing as a preacher in Tatesville, Georgia, Isaiah is an escaped convict who convinces small-town worthy Martha Jane (Julia Theresa Russell) to let him court her daughter, Isabelle (Mercedes Gilbert). However, Sylvester also has eyes for Isabelle and comes to her aid when his sibling absconds with her mother's savings and coerces Isabelle to take the blame. Robeson is splendidly imposing. But, even though the dream ending was forced on Micheaux by a shortage of funds, this is penny dreadful fare that reveals little visual imagination or technical flair.

Historically, however, this stilted, static silent remains an important picture. As does The Exile (1931), Micheaux's first excursion into talkies, which was banned in several states because of its discussion of miscegenation. Based on Micheaux's novel, The Conquest, story turns around respectable mixed-race rancher Stanley Morrell's relationships with Chicago gambling den boss Eunice Brooks and Nora Newsome, the Scottish daughter of South Dakota landowner Charles Moore, who discovers that her mother is of Abyssinian extraction just as Brooks is reacquainted with disgruntled old flame Carl Mahon. But, even though Newsome has to head north to rescue Morrell from a murder charge, the plot matters less than the picture that Micheaux presents of African-American social strata and the nuances within them of skin colour.

Once again dipping into his back catalogue, Micheaux reworked the lost 1926 silent, The Spider's Web, as The Girl From Chicago (1932), which has the feel of a studio B movie, as government agent Carl Mahon is dispatched to Batesburg, Mississippi to track down escaped felon John Everett. But, having done his duty and returned to Chicago with teacher Starr Calloway, Mahon finds himself having to crack another case when Calloway's onetime landlady, Eunice Brooks, loses all her money at the Radium Club and is accused of killing owner Juano Hernandez when the real culprit is his scheming wife, Grace Smith, who just happens to be Everett's former mistress.

Despite lacking the verbal fizz of a Hollywood gangster movie, this is every bit as convoluted and confusing, as Micheaux tries to keep things moving while condemning the sins he comes perilously close to glamorising. But it's fascinating to see how he strives to entertain the audience while pushing his moral and social messages. He follows the same pattern in Veiled Aristocrats (1932), a remake of another missing silent, The House Beyond the Cedars (1927), which stars Lorenzo Tucker (who was known as `the Black Valentino') as a light-skinned lawyer returning after 20 years to the family home in North Carolina and conniving with mother Laura Bowman to prise sister Lucille Lewis away from sweetheart Carl Mahon by passing her off as the ward of white judge Lawrence Chenault, whose wealthy friends include the dashing Barrington Guy.

Only existing in a truncated version, this take on a 1900 Charles W. Chesnutt novel anticipates the `passing' dramas like John M. Stahl's Imitation of Life (1934) and Elia Kazan's Pinky (1949). Micheaux reunited with Bowman on Ten Minutes to Live (1932), which draws on three unpublished short stories for an ambitious narrative whose Harlem nightclub setting allows the ever-resourceful director to showcase acts from the Cotton Club and Connie's Inn. The first strand sees producer Lawrence Chenault arrive at the Lybia Club to cast chorus girl Laura Bowman in a cowboy movie. However, on discovering that both singers have the same first name, he mistakenly offers the role to Mabel Garrett instead.

Meanwhile, godfather Lorenzo Tucker seeks to persuade AB DeComathiere to withdraw his proposal of marriage to Willor Lee Guilford by telling him about her tangled past with ne'er-do-well William A. Clayton, Jr., who duped her into a sham marriage and left her holding their baby. As Tucker finishes his tale, however, Guilford shoots Clayton at his table and he gives her the eponymous ten-minute warning. However, a note from his mother arrives informing him that Guilford had nothing to do with sending him to jail and he strangles lover Tressie Mitchell instead.

Once again, this may seem crude to modern eyes. But the very fact that Micheaux could produce pictures for so-called `Midnight Ramble' audiences for three decades is testament to his tenacity, if not his artistry. However, he would only complete two more features after Birthright (1938), a revival of a lost 1924 short that is presented here despite missing its opening two reels. At the heart of the action is Harvard graduate Carman Newsome, who returns to Hooker's Bend in the Deep South to stay with mother Trixie Smith while trying to establish a technical school for black youths. However, he is swindled in a land deal and finds himself competing for the affections of nightclub chanteuse Ethel Moses with his war hero best friend, Alex Lovejoy. But things change dramatically when Newsome starts working for the richest man in town, George E. Lessey, who unexpectedly leaves him a fortune just as Moses is accused of being a thief by his benefactor's malicious maid.

Denouncing the injustice of the Jim Crow laws, this audacious drama clearly fell foul of local censorship boards because of its scathing depiction of the crooked banker and the redneck sheriff. But Micheaux also delves into the topic of class within the black community and the relative values of an academic education and practical training. Moreover, he also exploits the setting to stage some musical numbers (Moses's sister, Hazel Diaz, is also a performer) and it's easy to see the influence that Micheaux exerts on the other film-makers whose work is celebrated in this remarkable collection.

As was later the case with Blaxploitation, a number of `race movies' were produced by white film-makers, among them Richard E. Norman, who sought to make pictures to instil pride in African-American audiences and demonstrate to the rest of the population the untapped potential that the nation could harness. Consequently, he cast Laurence Criner as a Great War aviation veteran in The Flying Ace (1926) and teamed him with Kathryn Boyd to recover some stolen money, track down a missing person and trap a gang of railroad bandits. Set up with much the same intention, the Philadelphia-based Colored Players Film Corporation also sought to explore the black experience in the South and Roy Calnek's Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1926), which is set in the town of Cederville and follows the drunken decline of Charles Gilpin when he sells his gin mill to the pernicious Lawrence Chenault, who sets out to corrupt the locals with alcohol and vice. But Gilpin undergoes a reformation after he accidentally kills Chenault's young daughter.

Culminating in an eruption of violence that would have been unthinkable in a studio picture, this rare chance to admire the talent of Charles Gilpin (who took the Broadway lead in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, 1923) finds a companion piece in Frank Peregini's The Scar of Shame (1927), as budding composer Harry Henderson finds his hopes of marrying star pupil Perm MacCormick jeopardised when her lawyer father, Lawrence Chenault, is invited to the Club Lido by the scarred Lucia Lynn Moses, where he learns about Henderson's marriage and prison record, as well as Moses's relationships with her drunkenly abusive stepfather, Norman John Stone, and her partner in the gambling joint, William E. Pettus.

Positing the importance of a good start in life, this may seem no more sophisticated than the kind of silent morality tale peddled by the likes of Griffith and DeMille. But Moses's final act of self-sacrifice is deeply moving, while the allusions to black aspiration provide telling insights into contemporary class and caste divisions. Cuban-born Richard Maurice also combined melodrama and social critique in Eleven PM (1928), a tangled tale of urban degradation that reporter Louis Perry (Sammie Fields) packs into the story he hopes editor Harry Brown (Eugene Williams) will run in his Search Light newspaper to reveal the depths to which humanity can stoop when crushed by poverty, crime, immorality and injustice.

But the pressure of meeting his deadline before girlfriend June (Oriane Johnson) and boxing promoter Roy Stewart (H. Marion Williams) can find him proves too much for Perry and he drifts off to sleep. He dreams that the mortally wounded Roy asks street musician Sundaisy (Richard Maurice) to raise his son, Clyde, and keep him out of trouble. But the boy is led astray by Reverend Hacket (JM Stephens), a crook posing as a cleric who marries Sundaisy and June, only for June to disappear in shame, 12 years later, after discovering that their daughter, Hope (Wanda Maurice), is illegitimate.

Several years later, Sundaisy and Hope (now played by Johnson) re-encounter Clyde (now played by Williams), whose bid to abduct her is thwarted by Perry. He returns Hope to her father and their dog Mickey. But Sundaisy dies while threatening Clyde with a knife (after vowing to return to protect his child) and Hope has no option but to perform erotic dances at Clyde's new night spot, The Blue Heaven. Perry is hospitalised after snooping around the club and he recovers in time to rescue Hope as Clyde is attacked by a Mickey, who now has Sundaisy's features.

In many ways anticipating the way in which Nollywood film-makers leaven their studies of bleak social realism with supernatural fantasy, this follow-up to Maurice's only other feature, Our Christianity (1920), may not be dramatically sophisticated. But its use of double exposure and split screens suggests a stylistic ambition that Maurice lacked the craft or the budget to realise. The self-taught pairing of James and Eloyce Gist also used film to educate their audiences, as the itinerant preachers filled handheld 16mm titles like Hell-Bound Train (1930) with sinners in the hope of encouraging temperance and saving some souls. In the course of this journey, errant wives, insolent children, charlatans, killers, gamblers, bootleggers, pool players, jazz musicians and drunks perish to the delight of a rotund devil, who greets each new passenger with a gleeful jig.

Such bible-thumping evangelicalism might seem outdated, especially as the standard of the acting is so amateurish. But, with Eloyce (who is disowned in the film after being accused of adultery) accompanying the action on the piano and James preaching a sermon after it, this would have put the fear of God up viewers of all ages. So would Eloyce's short, Verdict Not Guilty (1933), in which a demon seeks to persuade God that a woman who died in childbirth out of wedlock deserves to suffer eternal damnation.

Richard Kahn provides some welcome respite in The Bronze Buckaroo (1939), a sagebrush saga that is not appreciably worse than anything being churned out on Poverty Row at the same time. The hero in the ten-gallon hat is Herb Jeffries, who rides from Texas from Arizona to see old pal Rollie Hardin and his sister, Artie Young, She reveals that her brother has vanished in mysterious circumstances and Jeffries and pals FE Miller and Lucius Brooks ride into town in search of clues. Instead, they run into Spencer Williams, a thuggish cowhand who shoots a cardsharp before duking it out with Jeffries.

They also meet neighbour Clarence Brooks, who has recently failed in a bid to buy Hardin's ranch. At Earl Morris's saloon, Jeffries bursts into an upper room to find Brooks and Williams trying to coerce Hardin into signing over the deeds to his property so they can seize a rich gold seam. But he fails to rescue his friend, who is branded with a hot iron and has to endure his sister being menaced by his foes before Jeffries rides to the rescue with the sheriff.

Complete with musical numbers by The Four Tones and a running joke about Miller using ventriloquism to fool Brooks into thinking that a mule named Gabriel can talk, this makes for undemanding entertainment. Indeed, it shows how black audiences were happy to watch the same kind of genre fare as their white counterparts, right down to the cornball comedy. However, Miller puts his voice-throwing skills to good use during the final showdown before Brooks turns the tables by exacting his revenge for being cheated in a card game.

Although he plays the villain's sidekick, Spencer Williams eventually emerged as Micheaux's most accomplished heir with a series of features after he made his debut behind the camera with the 1931 short, Hot Biskits. Eventually, he would find small-screen fame alongside Alvin Childress in Amos 'n' Andy. But Williams reached his creative peak with The Blood of Jesus (1941), which was filmed on location in Texas for a mere $5000.

Opening with Cathryn Caviness being baptised in a river by two members of her congregation, Juanita Riley and Reather Hardeman, the story follows her home to new husband, Spencer Williams, who missed the ceremony to go hunting. He confesses to killing a neighbour's hog and joins his wife in prayer. But, as he puts his rifle down, it goes off accidentally and a bullet wounds Caviness before lodging in a picture of Christ.

On her deathbed, Caviness is visited by angel Rogenia Goldthwaite, who leads her to a cemetery reserved for those who have perished through the sins of others. However, she is told that her time has not yet come and that she must follow a highway to the crossroads between life and death. En route, Caviness is tempted by an underworld envoy Frank H. McClennan, who tries to snare her soul by offering her chic fashions and an exciting social life. However, McClennan plans to billet her with roadhouse owner Eddie DeBase and Caviness only just manages to resist the lure of easy wealth.

As she flees, however, Caviness is mistaken for a thieving hooker and she is chased to the crossroads, where the demonic James B. Jones awaits her. A jazz band plays on the back of a lorry, as Caviness collapses and seems powerless to fight off Satan's power. But Goldthwaite comes to her aid and drops of Christ's blood land on her forehead as the crossroads becomes a crucifix. As she regains consciousness, she sees Williams beside her bed and the angel departs knowing that she is in safe hands.

Running just under an hour, this has rightly been claimed as one of the most important black films made in the United States. It was hugely popular with its target Southern Baptist audience and made money for both the Dallas-based Sack Amusement Enterprises and Williams's own company, Amnegro. But what makes this such an enduringly compelling piece of hokum-free folk cinema is the empathy Williams has for the religion, traditions and music of ordinary black people. There is nothing preachy or patronising about the message, while the characters have a down-to-earthiness that is poles apart from the stereotypes populating even the all-black offerings produced in Hollywood.

During the course of his directorial career, Williams would make the now lost Brother Martin, Servant of Jesus (1942), as well as the likes of Marching On! (1943), Go Down, Death (1944), Beale Street Mama, The Girl in Room 20 (both 1946) and his final feature, Juke Joint (1947). But this selection concludes with Dirty Gertie From Harlem USA (1946), an unauthorised reworking of the W. Somerset Maugham story, `Miss Thompson'.

Leaving Harlem under a cloud, stripper Gertie LaRue (Francine Everett) checks into the bridal suite at the Paradise Hotel on the Caribbean island of Rinidad with her factotum, Stella Van Johnson (Katharine Moore). While owner Diamond Joe (Don Wilson) sets his cap at Gertie and missionaries Jonathan Christian (Alfred Hawkins) and Ezra Crumm (David Boykin) target her for reformation, members of her dance troupe gossip about her mistreatment by sugar daddy Al (John King). However, Christian is dismayed by the erotic nature of Gertie's routine at the Diamond Palace, particularly when she flirts openly with sailor Tight Pants (Hugh Watson) and soldier Big Boy (Shelly Ross). He also sees her throw a bottle at a mirage of Al after club pianist Larry (Piano Frank) plays a song that reminds her of her old flame. But, when he tries to help her after she passes out, Gertie accuses Christian of trying to take advantage of her.

Unnerved by recent events, Gertie consults wizened fortune-teller Old Hager (Spencer Williams), who sees her past misdemeanours in her crystal ball and warns Gertie that a man is on her trail. But she insists on stripteasing that night and has to be escorted back to the hotel after Christian blunders on to the stage. Yet, while she ponders her future in her room, Gertie is fatally wounded by Al, who informs the police that he killed her out of love.

Although Raoul Walsh and Lewis Milestone had respectively filmed the story as Sadie Thompson (1928) and Rain (1932), the Hollywood versions were much more restrained than this retelling by True T. Thompson. Married to actor Rex Ingram and known for such race movies as John Clein's Keep Punching (1939) and Bud Pollard's Big Timers (1945), Francine Everett clearly revels in the chance to play fast and loose and display the sensuality that black women were rarely allowed to exhibit in studio features. But, while Williams cocks a snook at the censors and decries the hypocrisy of the judgemental missionary, he is careful not to offend a core audience that would increasingly have to settle for Hollywood platitude and caricature, as the 1000+ venues on the Midnight Ramble circuit began to close, just as the demands of the Civil Rights movement became more insistent.