Hallelujah

In 1929, MGM began the process of converting to sound. They were almost the "latecomers" of sound conversion compared to their competitors over at the Warners lot; Warners' Vitaphone was pretty much in full swing by 1929 after having experimented with orchestral sound on film in 1926 in "The Better 'Ole" and "Don Juan" and then with actual voice embedment on film in "The Jazz Singer" the following year.

Even for such a major film studio like MGM, the cost was almost prohibitive, so Louis B. Mayer was skeptical about financing a major film epic featuring an all black cast. In the first half of the 20th Century, the major film studios catered mostly to white audiences, so a project of this nature was almost unheard of. Director, King Vidor was personally convinced that this film would be a success at the box office that he offered to match MGM dollar for dollar in producing this film. That said, the executives at MGM agreed, reluctantly, to take on this project.

I was totally surprised by the candidness of the material. From the way the major studios depicted black people as individuals of little or no importance, usually portraying them in a very negative way, I was at first skeptical. I expected more singing, dancing and stereotyping. Little did I know what a surprise I was in for! MGM could not have done a better job at portraying individuals with such humanistic qualities. As with most backdrops featuring blacks, it takes place in the cotton fields of the South; the motion picture industry failed miserably to depict black urban or middle class life until decades later.

Amazingly, most, if not all, of these actors were untested individuals on the screen or stage. Vidor's direction, along with these actors' willingness to succeed on the screen, created a work of art for the cinema. A huge box office success, "Hallelujah" was an oasis in an otherwise all-white world of big business cinema. It is a shame that the movie moguls at the time did not take further advantage of the acting talents of minorities.

Leonard Maltin could not have put it more succinctly when he said about Hallelujah: "King Vidor's early talkie triumph, a stylized view of black life focusing on a Southern cotton-picker who becomes a preacher but retains all-too-human weaknesses." Definitely a home run! A must see!

I probably don't need to go into the historical facts about this movie or the plot, as this had probably been expunded in numerous other comments. Personally I think that Hallelujah is a beautiful and powerful film, sympathetic to African Americans, and I think it's remarkable that it was produced at all.

Hallelujah is a huge production, with hundreds of extras. The cast was made up of mostly unknowns. Cast members like Fally Belle McKnight and Victoria Spivey apparently never made any other films, and leads Daniel L. Haynes and Nina Mae McKinney were obviously getting started. The cast is very good, I thought, especially Spivey (a veteran of the stage) as Rose. Haynes is okay in the beginning, seeming a little uneven in his role as well-meaning rogue Zeke, but the final scenes allow him to prove the commanding presence he could muster as an screen presence. Nina Mae McKinney is a power-house. A short, curvy beauty with an interesting voice, she has something of a young Myrna Loy. In fact, I just recently saw a still from a Loy film called The Squall where Loy looks an awful lot like McKinney.

Movies like Hallelujah are an acquired taste. When I first saw it, I was distracted by the crudeness of the sound, the jagged editing and the overall unevenness of the movie. Sure, two or three years later, Hollywood was turning out glossy productions like Red Dust and Blond Venus, with highly polished editing, clear sound and more mobile camera-work, but this is 1929. Sound film-making techniques had yet to be smoothed out. The crinkles of a young process actually add charm to this film, if you know to expect them.

I'll admit as well that, when I first saw Hallelujah, I was irritated by the voices. There's a lot of screeching from the women, and a great deal of mumbling as well. A second viewing, though, allows one to see past these "irritating" aspects and appreciate the voices for what they are. This way, Fanny Belle McKnight's agonized cries of sorrow and her singing the children to sleep is more touching than it is grating.

It's hard to know what else to say about the film. For all it's shortcomings, it's a touching film, lyrical even. I think it's a wonderful production, and I doubt it would not have been made much differently by a black director. Plus, one must agree, King Vidor was a far better craftsman than Oscar Micheaux. 9/10

"Hallelujah!" is fascinating from a film history perspective. King Vidor created the first Hollywood film with an all-black cast, and depicted in almost documentary fashion what life was like for poor blacks living in America's deep South. Alas, any interest the film held for me was purely academic -- as a film, it's otherwise rather boring.

The nominal plot focuses on Zeke, who lives with his large family and helps with their cotton-picking business. We watch him struggle with the demons that plague mortal man -- like gambling and horniness -- give into them, repent, give into them again, repent, and so on, until he comes back at the end to the family who loves him. Indeed, family and religion are the two dominant pillars around which these poor folk anchor themselves, much as they are in any culture. Much of the film consists of long scenes depicting a sermon, a baptism, a local dance. There are countless scenes of characters lifting their hands to heaven, praying to Jesus to guide them. It's all rather dramatically inert, and the film is too long. If you are religious yourself, I imagine these scenes might have a certain power to them. I found all of the weeping and wailing tiresome after a while.

Credit must go to Vidor, though, for even bothering to make this film at a time when much of America didn't care all that much about the black people. The movie is a memento of the role film can play in leading cultural progress.

Grade: C+

There's something hypnotic about good preaching. All that passion, all that energy, whether it's in film or in person, has a cumulative power. It's hard to doubt the spreading power of religion when you see Daniel L. Haynes (this film) or Robert Duvall ("The Apostle"), or read the sermon at the end of "The Sound and the Fury." Feverishly, they try and communicate God's word. They rant, they rave, they speak quickly and with an undeniable amount of integrity. They get the crowd going, usually in whoops and outbursts, and one man's conversation with God becomes a community event. (Indeed, the power of a worked-up crowd is a powerful tool in and of itself).

That's what's so terrific about King Vidor's "Hallelujah." Everyone's up in arms about one thing or another in this movie, whether it's money, sex, or Jesus. Early in the film there's a rather ludicrous scene where the hero's brother is accidentally killed, due to the hero's folly and hubris. That's his Sin, for which he must Redeem Himself Before God. There's also a woman who represents Temptation, who leads him astray time and time again. In the end there's an extended chase through a swamp, that would be done again in Kurosawa's "Stray Dogs."

All of that's well and good, but the film really peaks during the sermon sequences. Done wrong, sermons in movies usually pass by unnoticed, or are used as a clothsline to hang lame jokes about apathetic churchgoers. Done right, as in this film, "The Apostle," and the most unusual ones in "Beloved," they can be as captivating as if you were really in attendance. It's a testament to the power of the motion picture.

It's important to realize this was only the first year of sound pictures. Seen in that light, HALLELUJAH! has a remarkable fluidity, and a freedom from the tyranny of the sound camera that is little short of astonishing. (See "Singin' in the Rain" for a realistic depiction of this problem.) The acting is on a high level, if somewhat dated. King Vidor did an admirable job in depicting his characters' life condition, and was deservedly nominated as Best Director of 1929/30.