Scene from Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates

Actors Charles D Lucas and Evelyn Preer.

Synopsis
This film is one of the earliest surviving examples of a film by an African American filmmaker. Sylvia Landry is engaged to a black soldier, but her rival Alma Pritchard arranges for him to catch Sylvia in an innocent but compromising situation. No longer engaged, she moves to the South to work as a teacher in an all black school. When the school has financial problems, she returns to Boston to raise money for it. There, she is befriended by a white doctor, Dr. Vivian, who falls in love with her. In a flashback, her rival tells the doctor how Sylvia lost her family. Sylvia's father was unjustly accused of murder, and her parents were lynched. Micheaux's films are important because they dealt with issues that the mainstream "white" studios ignored. The last third of the film is a haunting flashback to the death of Sylvia's parents. The scenes of the lynch-mob beating one man to death and hanging Mr. and Mrs. Landry are still powerful today, and the film is highly critical of blacks who betray their race to earn favor with the white dominant society. Bruce Calvert, Rovi

Within Our Gates stirred up considerable controversy during its original release because it contained a scene in which a black man is lynched by a white mob. At first the film, which eventually had its premiere in Chicago, was rejected by the Chicago Board of Movie Censors who were afraid the movie could possibly inspire a race riot. However, a second screening of the film by the press, Chicago politicians, and prominent members of the black community convinced the Censors to grant the film a permit since it addressed horrendous conditions that needed reform. Not everyone agreed with this assessment, however, and some of the most vigorous protesters against the film were black activists.

Not surprisingly, white theatre owners in the south who catered to black patronage were also offended by Within Our Gates and refused to book it. One theatre owner in Shreveport, Louisiana, admitted "it was a very dangerous picture to show in the south" his comment was typical for the region. Micheaux, no stranger to controversy, refused to compromise his material despite being locked out of numerous distribution channels and went on to tackle other unpopular but equally topical problems in films like God's Stepchildren (1938), in which a light-skinned black woman tries to pass for white, and Birthright (1939), the story of a black Harvard graduate who encounters opposition from both whites and members of his own race. While Micheaux was well aware that audiences wanted to be entertained, he also felt it was his duty to confront challenging issues that would, in his words, "leave an impression" on audiences.

Director/Producer: Oscar Micheaux
Screenplay: Oscar Micheaux
Music: Philip Carli
Cast: Evelyn Preer (Sylvia Landry), Flo Clements (Alma Prichard), James D. Ruffin (Conrad Drebert), Jack Chenault (Larry Prichard), William Smith (Detective Philip Gentry), Charles D. Lucas (Dr. V Vivian), Bernice Ladd (Mrs. Geraldine Stratton).

Info: TCM, Jeff Stafford