NOTE: This is not a new review. I previously published it on social media on August 29, 2015.
Long controversial, yet nowadays not widely seen, this film of Marc Connelly’s play (itself based on stories by Roark Bradford) might be tremendously patronizing or thunderously naïve by modern standards, but it’s undoubtedly sincere and performed with conviction. Incredibly problematic, it is nonetheless hard to dismiss.
It is retelling of several Biblical stories as blacks of the rural South would have supposedly pictured them: Heaven is depicted as a fish-fry and God (Rex Ingram) as a stalwart, generally benevolent elder; Adam and Eve are farm laborers; Noah (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) builds the Ark around his own house; Pharaoh (Ernest Whitman) is the head of a fraternal lodge, and so forth.
Perhaps what dates the film more than anything else is its use of Connelly and Bradford’s idea of AAVE; God is generally referred to as “De Lawd”, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg; the most indulgent audience will still likely cringe quite a bit. And the inventiveness displayed in the adaptation of the Bible is undercut by the fundamental appropriation on display. However well-meant Connelly was, he was extremely presumptuous.
And there are other problems. The final third of the film becomes increasingly murky, going on a tangent about a warrior, Hezdrel (also Ingram), who does not appear in the Bible; then, after a brief offscreen appearance by Jesus, God realizes that God must suffer too, and the film ends rather abruptly. Connelly supposedly reworked the ending during production, and it shows; it feels muddled and unsatisfying.
But with all that, there are compensations. Ingram (who also plays Adam) has just the right mixture of paternal benevolence and patriarchal fury, and the supporting cast, while uneven, generally perform with energy and conviction. And it has a completely African-American cast–something few films even now can claim.
A film that should be taken with a heavy grain of contextual salt, but a significant part of film history regardless.
Score: 69
If You Want the Gravy... 