Hallelujah (1929-30)

 

Hallelujah is tough to watch with a modern sensibility because it does occasionally traffic in some pretty offensive stereotypes of African Americans. Historically, it is significant as the first all-black, all-sound musical film, released early in the sound era, and it was named in 2008 to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” I’m sure its defenders (if there are any?) would claim that it depicts the standard representations of African Americans of the time, but given what we know of the racist tendencies of the entertainment industry, that doesn’t make it easier to view. You cannot just dismiss what was offensive even at the time of its creation; the film even features a character named Mammy, and that term certainly had pejorative implications even in 1929. The plot concerns Zeke, a poor cotton farmer who gambles away the money that his family has earned on their yearly crop. He’s fallen under the influence of a “loose woman” named Chick who is working with her boyfriend, a hustler called Hot Shot. After they cheat Zeke out of his money, he tries to get it back and one of his brothers is accidentally killed in the fight. Zeke becomes a preacher, renames himself Zekiel, and tries to convert Chick to Christianity. The sequence where Zeke baptizes multiple people, including Chick, is really quite beautifully shot. However, he really cannot resist Chick and she cannot resist her former lover. Soon after he leaves his religion to be with her, she renews her relationship with Hot Shot. As Zeke, actor Daniel L. Haynes exhibits a fine baritone voice. The real star of the movie, though, is Nina Mae McKinney as Chick. She is a supremely talented actress, a great singer, and a fantastic dancer. It’s a shame that she didn’t have a bigger, more successful career. Much of the acting is somewhat amateurish, but the dialogue doesn’t really help the actors. What does impress a viewer is the integration of music into the film’s narrative. Hallelujah features lots of singing and music, much of it diegetic. The music is an interesting mix of religious and secular music, and it certainly contributes to the overall impact of the film. Here’s an interesting bit of awards trivia: the film’s director, King Vidor, was one of two directors being nominated for the second time in Academy Award history; the other was eventual winner Lewis Milestone (for All Quiet on the Western Front), who had won for his direction of the comedy film Two Arabian Knights in the Oscars’ first year.

Oscar Nomination: Best Director (King Vidor)

Inherit the Wind (1960)

 

Inherit the Wind fictionalizes the famed “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925, but it manages to follow some of the broader outlines of what actually happened. A schoolteacher, played by Dick York (before he became the first Darren on Bewitched), plays the Scopes figure, Bertram Cates, who dares to broach the subject of Darwin’s theory of evolution to his students and is subsequently arrested. Instead of famed attorneys Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the movie features Spencer Tracy’s Henry Drummond and Fredric March’s Matthew Harrison Brady. Providing some acidic cynicism is Gene Kelly as E.K. Hornbeck, standing in here for noted journalist H.L. Mencken. The film is adapted from the 1955 play of the same name, and both the playwrights and screenwriters have done really very little to disguise the connections between the fictional and historical counterparts. The trial is even referred to as the “Hillsboro Monkey Trial.” An interesting addition to the historical account is the romance between Cates and a fellow schoolteacher, Rachel Brown (a solid Donna Anderson), the daughter of the town’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Brown (Claude Akins, surprising in his fire-and-brimstone glory). Most of the more interesting events in the film take place in a very hot courtroom; that setting doesn’t help the movie escape its stage-bound origins. Tracy’s Drummond and March’s Brady fight each other and try to outshine each other in the courtroom. March has the flashier role, and Brady has the full support of almost everyone in the small town of Hillsboro. They even give him a huge parade and rally when he arrives in town. However, not everyone, it turns out, is against Cates, and some of them even realize how much of an embarrassment to the town this trial and all its publicity truly is. March can, by turns, be bullying, aggressive, and boastful in the courtroom; Brady is always performing for the crowd, it seems. March is too prone to mannerisms and tics that can be distracting, especially the way he moves his mouth at times, and his character emerges as a tragic, almost pathetic figure by the film’s end. By comparison, Tracy’s performance is much more low key. He’s in his funny, sarcastic mode here, and he finds humor even when he’s frustrated because it’s clear he’s going to be on the losing side from the beginning of the trial. The two lawyers have been friends for a long time and have faced each other in court many times, apparently, but their relationship has changed over time as each has taken a different path in life. Caught in the middle is Brady’s wife Sarah, nicely played by Florence Eldridge, March’s real-life spouse. Eldridge’s Sarah gets one good scene defending her husband and his life and work, and many other supporting cast members have opportunities to shine, including Harry Morgan as the judge and Kelly playing very much against type. The film doesn’t really care much for York’s defendant, honestly, and by the time Drummond calls Brady to the stand to testify as an expert witness on the Bible and its teachings, you know this is not really an examination of the impact of evolution. To be fair, Inherit the Wind is not truly meant as a history lesson even though too many people tend to take such movies as being completely factual. This film version is a fictional account, after all, and it isn’t even really about the supposed conflict between the theory of evolution and Christian belief systems or perhaps between education and faith on a much broader scale. Instead, it seems to warn against narrow-mindedness and the persecution of those who hold different ideas. It’s a pretty stern, clear warning about the dangers of fanaticism and groupthink. (The town is, for the most part, a Greek chorus of ignorance.) Sadly, we seem to be as much in need of this lesson today as they were when the play was written in the 1950s or when the film was released in the 1960s.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Spencer Tracy), Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Black-and-White Cinematography, and Best Film Editing