Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Way uptown from Gone with the Wind


Moon over Harlem 1939 U.S. (68 minutes) directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.
This is a ‘race picture,’ as feature films with all black casts were known during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
The story opens with the wedding reception of Harlem mobster Dollar Bill (Bud Harris) and Minnie (Cora Green) at Minnie’s apartment, with Dollar’s gang and Minnie’s churchgoing crowd, her grown daughter Sue (Izinetta Wilcox) and Sue’s beau, the earnest Bob (Earl Gough).
The central dramatic conflict is whether Minnie and her daughter can prevail over the depredations of the skirt-chasing spendthrift mobster Dollar Bill.
A deeper theme engages two views of the black future: Dollar Bill’s desire to take full control of Harlem from white racketeers he answers to, opposed to Bob’s proto-civil rights era vision of a Harlem free of gangsters preying on black businesses so that hard working black business people can claim a place in an integrated mainstream.
Bob (Earl Gough), Minnie (Cora Green) and  Dollar Bill (Bud Harris) in Edgar G. Ulmer's Moon over Harlem 1939.
The sound and black and white picture quality are uneven, but director Edgar G. Ulmer spins a watchable yarn.
Watch for Sidney Bechet, who plays his clarinet among the guests at the opening wedding reception; Christopher Columbus and his Swing Crew take the bandstand for the dance numbers. 

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