Historically Important but a Rather Bland Film
Michael_Elliott
The Exile (1931) ** (out of 4) Jean Baptiste (Stanley Morrell), a black man from Chicago, could live a good life if he agrees to marry Edith Duval (Eunice…
The Exile (1931) ** (out of 4) Jean Baptiste (Stanley Morrell), a black man from Chicago, could live a good life if he agrees to marry Edith Duval (Eunice Brooks) who has just came into possession of a mansion, which she plans to turn into a speak easy. Instead Jean decides to move out West to start a farm and it's there that he meets a white woman (Nora Newsome) and falls in love. However, he feels guilty that she's white and he returns to Chicago and sure enough runs into Edith.THE EXILE is a historically important film since it was the first black film to be an all talking picture. That reason alone means it's very important but sadly the film itself really isn't all that good. As with many of the early Hollywood talkies, this film here has one major issue and that's the fact that it just doesn't know when to shut up. This film has so much pointless dialogue that you can't help but wish the film was a silent so that people would just shut up.The dialogue, as written, isn't that awful but there's just way too much of it and there are scenes that just drag on for no reason. I know, people were killing for talking pictures so producers wanted to give them films with a lot of dialogue but these movies just don't play out too well today. Another problem is that the story just isn't all that interesting. You should know every twist and turn that happens and it's just not compelling enough to hold your attention through the 78-minute running time.I did think both Morrell and Brooks were good in their roles. Both gave fine performances, which helped keep the film from becoming completely unwatchable. Another good aspect were some vaudeville style numbers thrown into the picture. While these performances were good on their own, I'm really not sure why they were needed in the film as they didn't move or help the main plot.
★ 6 / 10
Very Important But Not Good
boblipton
Oscar Micheaux's first sound film has quite an involved plot, dealing as usual with interracial and moral-philosophical issues. A pious young black man falls…
Oscar Micheaux's first sound film has quite an involved plot, dealing as usual with interracial and moral-philosophical issues. A pious young black man falls for a former maid who has taken over a Chicago mansion to start a gambling club, but he is scandalized by her wild life and leaves to become a farmer in South Dakota. The neighbor's daughter is attracted to him, but he decides that marrying a white woman would pose too many problems for them both, so he returns to Chicago. About that time his former love is shot by a jealous old lover and he's accused of the crime.This movie is based on Micheaux's semi-autobiographical novel, as was, by appearances, his lost first movie, THE HOMESTEADER (1919). This sound version is an awkward combination of intermittently poor soundtrack, important philosophical discussions, stilted dialogue spoken badly, and excellent variety numbers -- Roland Holder's tap number is very well done, and the cinematographers move the camera during the hot chorus number.It's impossible to overstate the importance of Micheaux in film-making, as the first black producer-director-writer to turn out movies regularly. He turned out 39 of them from 1919 through 1948, and he tackled serious issues that other Black film makers ignored. However, he wrote dialogue poorly, and directed that dialogue badly. The reason for the problems are obvious: lack of money. Particularly when you got into sound films, making a movie cost a lot of money, not just for sound equipment, but in rehearsal time for actors to learn their dialogue and perform it well. Even well-funded major studios were barely done learning these lessons by the time Micheaux began to study them with this one. An unmoving camera and cramped set weigh down the dialogue segments. The result is a movie that anyone interested in the history and evolution of film needs to look at, but will have to admit is not very good.
80%
AUDIENCE
4.8/10
215
•••
Is this PO RN?