Preserving African-American Cinema: The Case of The Emperor Jones (1933)

Abstract

The Emperor Jones (1933) is a fascinating historical document; nevertheless, it seems to have been a film destined to confound those involved with it. In retrospect, virtually none of the key figures in its production expressed satisfaction with the outcome. Paul Robeson felt the themes of the piece were better served by the stage productions. One of the producers, John Krimsky, when asked why he chose the play as his subject, replied, "I should have had my head examined." 1 Eugene O'Neill, whose famous one-act play was the basis for the script, called it "a compromise neither artistic nor commercial." 2 Portions of the African-American press attacked the film for promulgating the very stereotypes they were attempting to eradicate. State censorship also did its part to disembowel the work of its ideological content. And finally, the film was left to languish for decades, with only inferior 16mm [End Page 43] prints in circulation, precluding its inclusion in the standard texts of American film history. Was the film indeed such a failure, as these circumstances suggest, or was it a victim of racial attitudes and the Cold War, which similarly forced its star into exile and cultural marginality? Was the film badly made, as some contemporaries suggested, or did it merely fail to conform to the norms of classical Hollywood cinema?