The Exile (1931) | First Black Feature Sound Film
THE EXILE is a race film that was directed, written, and produced by Oscar Micheaux. The film was Micheaux’s first feature-length sound film and the first feature length African-American sound film. It was based on Micheaux’s 1913 autobiographical novel, The Conquest.
The movie is about a young man named Jean (Stanley Morrell) in post-World War I Chicago falls in love with a beautiful girl named Edith (Eunice Brooks). Edith, who worked as a servant for a white family, inherits their mansion after they flee their neighborhood because of an influx of African Americans. He proposes to her, but realizes that she’s involved in the rackets and won’t leave them, so he goes back home to South Dakota, where he reinvents himself as a rancher and falls in love with Agnes Steward (Nora Newsome), a white woman. However, guilt drives him back to Chicago, where he runs into Edith again, and they agree to marry. One evening, Edith’s ex-boyfriend breaks into her room and threatens to kill himself. She challenges him to go through with it, however, he turns the gun and kills her instead. Jean is initially charged with the murder but is eventually acquitted. Meanwhile, Agnes’ father confesses that he himself is part black and she travels to Chicago and reunites with Jean.
Films such as this one, that used an all-African-American cast and were shown specifically to African-American audiences, were known as “race films.” Happy Black History Month!
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an author, film writer, producer, and director, of more than 40 silent films and sound independent films from 1919—1948. He is regarded as the first major African American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race films (a genre of film produced in the U.S. between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences and featuring black casts), and the most successful African American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, only few of Micheaux’s films survive to this day.
This film is in the public domain meaning it has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Corporations lobbied Congress to get U.S. copyright laws extended by 20 years, twice! Because of that, it allows published works to be under copyright for almost a century and corporations to squeeze every last ounce of profit from them even long after the profitability has past. It keeps people from enjoying art, which is the purpose of art.
#BlackCinema #BlackMovies #BlackFilms #publicdomainfilms
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