Chloe, Love Is Calling You

It isn't just that it's the most racist movie I've seen in a long time. It's just not very good. You have major parts played by white actors. In black and white, they don't even look dark. Then you have the ridiculous premise where the woman of "white blood" has longings she just can't explain. She is tilting toward her whiteness. Of course, it's obvious who the superior race is here. They lounge with their juleps and order the servants around. The "hero" is a monumental jerk, but he is a white guy. There's lots of talk about the problems of mixing with other races and it's a given, of course. The blacks also dance around doing their voodoo rites, totally "out of control." It's up to the landholder and his rich friends to take care of them. Also, Chloe was raised and loved by these people, but when she is revealed as a one hundred percent white woman, well, you can imagine what they're thinking. I realize how unenlightened people were (and how hateful). But it must have been viewed as a horrible depiction, even back in the 30's. I know that there is an historical perspective that applies here. Maybe we should all see this kind of stuff once in a while.

Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934)

BOMB (out of 4)

Incredibly bad film and I'm really not sure what the hell it was suppose to be about. Chloe (Olive Borden), a mixed race girl, returns to the swamp with a voodoo priestess who might be her mother. The voodoo priestess then wants to use Chloe to kill the man who lynched her father. The side plot deals with Chloe not knowing if she should be black or white or something like that. The biggest issue with the film is that it's confusing as hell and nothing ever really happens. Everything leads up to a voodoo sacrifice, which is just downright silly. This didn't ever make it into theaters back in the day. Instead the producers would go around to black neighborhoods and show it. This was apparently done because it was a "black film" but perhaps they just didn't want people seeing something this bad.

I agree that the plot and presentation are flawed, however, there is value in seeing how some people perceived certain social situations during an earlier era in our history. Not all people at that time, of course, saw things the same way, nor would they have made the movie in the way that it was done, but I appreciate all the old films because each gives us a short look at things through other eyes.

As for the complaint that the NAACP would not like the film, I am not sure about that. Maybe they would see some value in the enhanced exposure of certain attitudes, maybe not.

Having grown up in Louisiana, I do think that the voodoo scenes were overdone and the man wrestling with an already dead alligator was pretty hokey, but I was pleased to see some clear water for a change. (I suspect that scene may have been filmed in Florida because by the 1930's we had pretty much ruined our bayous already.)

Mike

Chloe Love Is Calling is an interesting low-budget drama from 1934. The plot is about a mixed-race woman named Chloe who desperately wants to pass as white. When she finds out the truth about her family she is nearly killed in a voodoo ritual. The movie deals with some topics that were considered very taboo in 1930s Hollywood - racial identity, violence against women, and lynching in the South. Critics will complain that the black characters are all stereotypes but this is typical of movies made at the time. We can't judge a movie made in 1934 by today's standards - this was an era when even Judy Garland was wearing blackface. Olive Borden gives an enthusiastic performance as Chloe and even gets to show off her skills as a "scream queen". She was once a popular silent star but couldn't make it in the talkies. Sadly this would be her final film and she would die a penniless alcoholic in 1947. Chloe is worth watching just to see Olive's final performance. It's not a great film but it's an entertaining look at a certain time in the American south.

Awful, just awful story about a young white woman raised by a black voodoo woman. If the NAACP ever saw this they would throw a fit. There are white actors playing black with virtually no make-up. The actress playing Chloe is having a terrible life until she finds out she is really white.

Story is basically a rich old southern gentlemen lost his daughter when she was just a child. An old black woman lost her own daughter and kidnapped Chloe and raised her as her own. There is love interest and plotted revenge by the black voodoo woman, but in the end the father and daughter are reunited. No matter what the VHS advertisements say, this is not a lost classic nor even remotely close to a horror movie. Do not watch it.