Videoteca

location_onNew York City, New YorkpublicUS

The Betrayal 1948
In this film, African-American Leroy Collins struggles with the onus placed on him by Society when he falls in love with a white woman.

The Notorious Elinor Lee 1940 star_border 4
Gangsters use a woman to get to a boxer and convince him to throw a big fight.

Lying Lips 1939 star_border 4.8
A nightclub singer refuses to "date" customers, so she's framed for the murder of her aunt.

Swing! 1938 star_border 5
Ted Gregory is trying to be the first black producer to mount a show on Broadway, but he has trouble with his star singer.

Birthright 1938 star_border 5.2
After graduating from Harvard University, Peter Siner returns to his small Tennessee hometown, where he hopes to start a school for black children.

God's Step Children 1938 star_border 5.2
Naomi, a light-skinned Black child, is abandoned by her mother and raised by the virtuous Mrs. Saunders. When the girl's fixation with whiteness turns her against her own race, she is sent to a convent. Hopelessly in love with her adoptive brother Jimmie, Naomi consents to marry his friend, but is repulsed by his darker skin and unrefined ways.

Underworld 1937
A young college student falls under the influence of a murderous gambler.

Murder In Harlem 1935 star_border 4.6
A Black night watchman at a chemical factory finds the body of a murdered white woman. After reporting it, he finds himself accused of the murder.

Harlem After Midnight 1934
Gangsters in Harlem make plans to commit a kidnapping.

Ten Minutes to Live 1932 star_border 4.7
A movie producer offers a nightclub singer a role in his latest film, but all he really wants to do is bed her. She knows, but accepts anyway. Meanwhile, a patron at the club gets a note saying that she'll soon get another note, and that she will be killed ten minutes after that.

The Girl from Chicago 1932 star_border 5.8
An undercover government agent on a case in Mississippi meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman who's being menaced by a local crime boss.

Veiled Aristocrats 1932 star_border 5
A young woman plans to marry, but her mother and brother--a lawyer--don't like her prospective husband and scheme to prevent the marriage.

The Exile 1931 star_border 4.9
An idealistic young man is torn between a sultry Chicago nightclub owner and a Scottish South Dakotan farmgirl.

The Darktown Revue 1931 star_border 3.2
With a series of long takes and frontal camera set-ups, Michaeux 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 David playing a preacher using heavy blackface. Amon Davus was known as "the Back Biting Comedian, Par Excellence", and his sermon is one of Michaeux's many notable send-ups of the clergy.

Body and Soul 1925 star_border 6.2
A minister is malevolent and sinister behind his righteous facade. He consorts with, and later extorts from, the owner of a gambling house, and betrays an honest girl, eventually driving them both to ruin.

Deceit 1923
Deceit (sometimes referred to as The Deceit) is a 1923 American silent black-and-white film. It is a conventional melodrama directed by Oscar Micheaux. Like many of Micheaux's films, Deceit casts clerics in a negative light. Although the film was shot in 1921, it was not released until 1923. It is not known whether the film currently survives, which suggests that it is a lost film. The 1922 film The Hypocrite was shown within Deceit as a film within a film.

The Dungeon 1922
The Dungeon is a 1922 race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux, considered the African-American Cecil B. DeMille due to his prolific output of films during the silent era, one of his greatest works being Body and Soul (1924). The Dungeon was his first horror effort, an early blaxploitation take on the Bluebeard legend. No print of the film is known to exist and it is presumed to be a lost film.

The Gunsaulus Mystery 1921
The Gunsaulus Mystery is a 1921 American silent race film directed, produced, and written by Oscar Micheaux. The film was inspired by events and figures in the 1913-1915 trial of Leo Frank, a Jewish man, for the murder of Mary Phagan, a Christian girl. The film is now believed to be lost.

The Symbol of the Unconquered 1920 star_border 5.3
Eve Mason, a white-passing black woman, moves to a remote cottage she inherited from her late father. She makes the acquaintance of her neighbor, a dashing black settler named Hugh Van Allen, and quickly falls for him. Trouble brews as the local cadre of racist hucksters want the valuable land Van Allen lives on, and will do anything to take it from him.