The Green Pastures (film)
The Green Pastures | |
---|---|
Directed by | Marc Connelly William Keighley |
Screenplay by | Sheridan Gibney |
Based on | The Green Pastures & Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun 1930 play & 1928 novel by Marc Connelly & Roark Bradford |
Produced by | Jack L. Warner |
Starring | Rex Ingram Oscar Polk Eddie Anderson Ernest Whitman |
Cinematography | Hal Mohr |
Edited by | George Amy |
Music by | Erich Wolfgang Korngold |
Distributed by | Warner Bros |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 min. |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $800,000 (estimated) |
Box office | $3,300,000 (estimated by 1939) |
The Green Pastures is a 1936 American film depicting stories from the Bible as visualized by black characters. It starred Rex Ingram (in several roles, including "De Lawd"), Oscar Polk, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. It was based on the 1928 novel Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun by Roark Bradford and the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Marc Connelly.
The Green Pastures was one of only six feature films in the Hollywood Studio era to feature an all-black cast, though elements of it were criticised by civil rights activists at the time and subsequently.[1]
Plot summary[]
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God tests the human race in this reenactment of Bible stories set in the world of black American folklore.
Cast[]
- Rex Ingram as De Lawd / Adam / Hezdrel
- Oscar Polk as Gabriel
- Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as Noah
- Frank Wilson as Moses
- George H. Reed as Mr. Deshee / Aaron
- as Archangel
- Myrtle Anderson as Eve
- as Cain
- Edna Mae Harris as Zeba
- James Fuller as Cain the Sixth
- George Randol as High Priest
- Ida Forsyne as Noah's Wife
- as Shem
- as Flatfoot
- Dudley Dickerson as Ham
- as Japheth
- as Abraham / Head Magician / King of Babylon
- as Jacob
- as Aaron
- Ernest Whitman as Pharaoh
- Reginald Fenderson as Joshua
- as Master of Ceremonies
- Clinton Rosemond as Prophet
- Hall Johnson Choir as Vocal Ensemble
- Willie Best as Henry - the Angel (uncredited)
- Jesse Graves as General (uncredited)
- Clarence Muse as Angel (uncredited)
- Fred Toones as Zubo (uncredited)
Reception[]
Despite criticisms about its racial stereotyping, The Green Pastures proved to be an enormously popular film. On its opening day at New York's Radio City Music Hall, tickets sold at a rate of 6,000 per hour. The film was held over for an entire year's run at some theaters. It remained the highest-grossing all-black-cast film until the release of Carmen Jones in 1954.
Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a generally good review, speculating that audiences "will find [it] continuously entertaining, if only intermittently moving". Greene praised director Connelly in particular, describing scenes of "excellent" melodrama, his "ingenious [use of] pathos", and the "admirable" restraint evident in the simplicity of the settings.
Greene's only complaints about the film was that "one may feel uneasy at Mr. Connelly's humour" and his depiction of "the negro mind". Greene noted that "the result is occasionally patronising, too often quaint, and at the close of the film definitely false", but ultimately he concludes that the film is "as good a religious play as one is likely to get in this age from a practiced New York writer".[2]
A review in The New York Times under the byline of "B.R.C.," while portraying the "shuffling" of its opening-night audience in terms that might be deemed racist, praised the sincerity of the production's religiosity and the aplomb of its cast, seeing in the movie "not only the 'divine comedy of the modern theatre' but something of the faith that moves mountains."[3]
See also[]
References[]
- ^ G. S. Morris, "Thank God for Uncle Tom – Race and Religion Collide in The Green Pastures", Bright Lights, Issue 59, February 2008.
- ^ Greene, Graham (4 December 1936). "The Green Pastures". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. pp. 121-122. ISBN 0192812866.)
- ^ "'The Green Pastures' at Last Seen in Film at Music Hall -- Rex Ingram as De Lawd". The New York Times. July 17, 1936. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
External links[]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Green Pastures (film). |
- 1936 films
- English-language films
- African-American drama films
- American films
- American black-and-white films
- Films based on the Hebrew Bible
- Films based on American novels
- American films based on plays
- Films directed by William Keighley
- Warner Bros. films
- 1936 drama films
- Cultural depictions of Adam and Eve
- Cultural depictions of Cain and Abel
- Cultural depictions of Abraham
- Portrayals of Moses in film
- Cultural depictions of Ramesses II
- Cultural depictions of Noah
- God in fiction
- Films based on adaptations
- Films scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold