The Old Settler

I happened to come across this movie quite by accident, and fell in love with the movie. Thank God that being single at 40 doesn't constitute being called an old settler, yet I really enjoyed the movie. I am also sad that they don't do more justice on this site about the movie.

I taped this movie on PBS about a month or so ago. I just watched it last night. It was such a warm and moving film, the kind that pulls you into the time setting. The dynamics of the sisters were wonderful, and you could feel the hope, anger, dashed dreams of all of the characters. It was interesting, also, to learn what the title meant. If you understand and are interested in the zeitgeist of the Harlem Renaissance, it will be very interesting viewing

I saw this film of a story written by Willa Cather twice on the local black public television network, out of Howard University. I wish I'd stayed to watch the credits, but I do know the names of two of the actors: Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen play sisters who, with several of their neighbors, move to Harlem from South Carolina to change their lives. Some of them change their names, but none of them changes his personality.

Forty-something and terminally spinstered Rashad rents out a room in her Harlem home to a young man, named "Husband," from back home. They soon fall in love and he convinces her and the viewer that he is not like the other emigrants who have fallen into a life of drugs, theft and prostitution.

Rashad and Allen show us black people as whites rarely see them in films: thoughtful, conservative, human.

I don't know if you could rent this film, but it's worth seeing. And I don't know why IMDB doesn't have more information on it.

Mag

I enjoyed this movie very much. Even while I was watching it I wondered whether it might be better to watch it as a play as some of the nuances are lost Without any audience response, the humour, the disgust and fear etc ... . And it may have also sterilised the actors a little bit. All of the main characters are so very powerful and to the viewer and well played in my view. I am a hopeless romantic and the couple of times that what the viewer might have hoped for doesn't happen is not insignificant.

I learnt a lot about the commentary on segregation but I'm less familiar with me being from Australia.

Thanks, Ben.

I've always liked Phylicia Rashad, and this was a pleasant surprise. It took about 30 seconds for me to be hooked. By the end, I was totally engrossed, and empathetic. We've all been stood up, or worse; left at the altar. Elisabeth was so confident and so trusting, and the viewer was right there with her. But in the end she was vulnerable and hurt. Great story, beautiful characterizations, powerful performances. Complex and bittersweet, just like the lives of most humans.