Murder in Harlem

Black night watchman finds the body of a dead white woman on the job and is accused of the crime.

Good but unremarkable crime drama set interestingly in a world thats both black and white. Many of the so called race films have casts that are entirely black, here there is a mix, which is rather unique. The problem with the film is that although it was made in 1935 it moves and behaves like a film five or six years earlier. Its slow and creaky nature reminds me of a film like Sinister Hands or The Shadow Laughs.

Its a good little story but there is a good chance you'll get bored with it and start speeding through it (I did)

A mostly black cast, and made by an early black author, writer, director, producer. With frequent use of typed cards to move the story both forward and backward. Writer student henry glory falls for a girl while selling his book door to door. Later, when a dead body is found, the coppers are brought in to solve the mystery. And the girl's brother, a watchman, has been accused of the murder. Stars clarence brooks, andrew bishop, alec lovejoy. Written and directed by the team of micheaux and williams. Based on micheaux's own book, this describes an actual murder from 1913. Some really interesting information in the imdb trivia section. Gotta give this one high marks for script and production. Micheaux knew some of the acting wasn't top notch, and the picture quality is pretty bad, but we're lucky to have this around at all, for such an oldie film by a black writer director producer. Hopefully it can get a restoration, even if just for historical value. He was the first black producer of sound films, acc to several sources. Currently showing on roku streaming channel. Hopefully there is a better copy out there somewhere for a future restoration! For more information on micheaux, check out his entry in wikipedia dot org, or watch "oscar micheaux: the superhero of black filmmaking". Interesting guy! He really accomplished a lot, in spite of the conditions at the time.

Okay, in spite of what some of the other reviews may tell you, this is basically a really bad movie. But it is blessed with some features that make it sporadically fascinating in spite of its frequent bouts of ineptitude. First of all, the cast is not good. Some of the acting is painfully wooden, particularly from the leading lady. To give them their due, they've been handed some very stiff and unnatural dialogue. The best members of the cast clearly did some ad-libbing rather than stick to the clunky text.

It's also poorly directed and edited. This has nothing to do with the fact that it needs some significant restoration. It's also obvious that it was done on a shoestring budget, but that can't excuse all of its technical and artistic flaws. There is one scene where the camera attempts a simple maneuver, but then chops off the tops of the actors' heads and then jerkily and belatedly returns to a more workable composition. The script is an interesting mess -- very slow and dull in spots, but then weirdly non-linear and unpredictable in others. I couldn't tell if it was an early attempt at a Rashomon or Pulp Fiction- like experiment, or if it was merely disjointed and awkward. Perhaps a little of both.

But it's interesting for a few other reasons, one of which is the excellent musical interlude around the midpoint, when the leading lady visits a speakeasy. Willie "The Lion" Smith is among the performers, and the music is terrific. Surprisingly, the technical quality of the soundtrack is not bad.

I also liked it for some of its fairly raw explanation of the race relations of the era. It's quite up front about the fact that blacks are second-class citizens, and everyone agrees that a black man who turns to the police for any sort of help is basically a chump. None of the many slicker and better movies of the era would have been so blunt about these sorts of things.

Anyway, it's good weird fun to watch, if you can get past the dullest scenes (the endless sequence between the boss at the chemical plant and the watchman he bribes comes to mind). Some of the bad acting is hilarious enough to be worth the effort.

Before watching this film and certainly before judging it, there are things you should bear in mind. First, the quality of the actual celluloid leaves much to be desired, and the film jumps in places. Secondly, although by 1935 blacks had already made an enormous impact on American popular culture, this was primarily through music. Oscar Micheaux, who made this, was a rarity, so although by 2015 standards this low budget monochrome leaves much to be desired, it was not a bad effort for the son of a slave, even if he had been making films for more than a decade.

Yes, the script is a bit wooden, and the extended absurd cameo at the beginning about the book salesman is superfluously irrelevant and then some, but this was based on Micheaux's own experience. The film itself is a thinly veiled reworking of the murder of Mary Phagan by Leo Frank. Although there have been repeated attempts over the past hundred years to absolve Frank of this crime and put the blame on his Negro sidekick, the complete documentation from the case has now been placed on-line, and it is difficult to conclude otherwise than that fanciful as Jim Conley's story may sound, he was telling the truth.

That being said, certain agenda-driven special interest groups continue to beat the drum of anti-Semitism, with the absurd implication that in 1913 a low class Negro was higher up the food chain than a white, college educated businessman. Those same mischief-makers were very active when this film was made, so it is possible that the twist in the end of the story was formulated by Micheaux to avoid problems with distribution.

Just watched this Oscar Micheaux-directed movie on YouTube. Based on the Mary Phagan murder case of which a Leo Frank was the accused one, a black night watchman sees a dead white woman on his rounds, and first tries to call his boss. Somehow the police find out and this particular watchman gets arrested even though he says he didn't do it. I'll stop there and just say the story goes back to before the beginning quite a few times which may get you confused as the narrative goes on if you're not paying enough attention. Some of the performances seem stiff but Alec Lovejoy, playing Lem Hawkins, seems somewhat of a comic relief when he does some of his kowtowing to his white boss or does a good acting turn expressing concern about what his possible fate might be if he doesn't follow orders. There's also some good musical numbers whenever there's a restaurant scene. The print I saw on YouTube skipped some frames but for the most part, I understood what was going on. In summary, Murder in Harlem was an okay murder mystery drama.