The Darktown Revue (4.3)

Movie · 1931 · 18 min · Comedy, Music

With a series of long takes and frontal camera set-ups, Micheaux provides a record of several cabaret acts, using intertitles to separate the individual numbers. This quietly outrageous film begins with the high-toned Heywood Choir singing "Watermelon time" and concludes with Amon Davis playing a preacher using heavy blackface. Amon Davis was known as "the Back Biting Comedian, Par Excellence", and his sermon is one of Micheaux's many notable send-ups of the clergy.

Directed by: Oscar Micheaux

Starring Amon Davis, Celeste Cole, Donald Heywood, Sara Martin, Tim Moore, Andrew Tribble

Stream in the US