The Complete Oscar Micheaux: Lying Lips (1939)
Director: Oscar Micheaux Run Time: 68 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 1939
Starring: Carman Newsome, Cherokee Thornton, Edna Mae Harris, Frances E. Williams, Robert Earl Jones
Country: United States
Language: English
The Complete Oscar Micheaux, presented from Thursday, September 19—Saturday, September 28, 2024. The program concludes with a limited engagement of the 2021 documentary Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking on Sunday, September 29.
About the film:
The story of a young social club manager named Benjamin who risks his own livelihood to protect the virtue of a pretty entertainer named Elsie. The Italian mobsters (played by Black actors) who run the club want Elsie to ”socialize” after hours with their best customers. But Benjamin refuses to coerce Elsie into doing their bidding and eventually quits his job, planning to enter government service.
“[Micheaux’s] visionary approach also extends to the sensitive and often controversial topics he tackled, probably at considerable professional and personal risk. I am amazed by his frank, unflinching perspective about race, religion, and gender, among other subjects.”
— Eric Monder, Film Journal International
This presentation is a beautiful 2K master from materials preserved by the Library of Congress and National Museum of African American History and Culture.
About the filmmaker:
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an author, film writer and director, and independent producer of more than 44 silent films and sound films from 1919—1948. Micheaux was the first African American filmmaker to produce a full feature-length film and is regarded as a prominent producer of race films, and the most successful African American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century. Micheaux’s work is not only a milestone in African American cinema, but an incredible insight into American history regarding race in society.
Born in 1884 to enslaved parents, Micheaux first left home to work for the railroads in Chicago. He had his sight set higher as a writer and a determined creative. He wrote a series of novels, including his self-published The Homesteader. Not only was Micheaux a pioneer in African American cinema, but also in independent publishing and filmmaking. After turning down offers to produce his novel into a film, he later found his own path to producing the 1919 film. Micheaux serves as a symbol of triumphing over the circumstances at hand to bring his vision to reality. The groundbreaking auteur’s features include The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), Body and Soul (1925), Within Our Gates (1920) and Birthright (1938).
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