A Giant of His Race (1921) [Lost Film]

 

Vicksburg Evening Post

Vicksburg, Warren, Mississippi

Sat, Dec 24, 1921 · Page 5

 

Daily Press

Newport News, Newport News, Virginia, United States of America

Sun, Dec 11, 1921 · Page 16

 

Winston-Salem Journal

Winston-Salem, Forsyth, North Carolina

Sun, Aug 28, 1921 · Page 18

Starring:

• Mabel Holmes
• Walter Holeby
• Walter Long
• Ruth Freeman
• Mr. Billups
• Miss. Young

Storyline
The story tells of Munga who, although a slave in a new world, never renounces his faith and finally dies at a ripe old age, leaving behind the son who had been thought with him from Africa, now a young man. Under the name of Convington, he works his way through college, studies medicine, and after graduating, decides to devote his life to the uplifting of his people. The Yellow Plague breaks out and kills members of his race by the score. The doctor spends days researching for a cure, and finally fortune favors him. A young woman of his race is used in an experiment and is cured. Convington is awarded $100,000 for his discover. The friendship of the young woman and the doctor has now ripened into love and they marry.

*** This film is considered lost until notified otherwise. ***

The Lure of a Woman (1921) [Lost Film]

Starring:

• A. Porter Davis
• Regina Cohee 
• Charles Allen 
• John Cobb 
• Lenore Jones 
• Alonzo Nixon

Storyline
According to an information in the George P. Johnson Collection at the UCLA Special Collections Library, this was the first release of The Afro-American Film Exhibitors Co. of Kansas City, Missouri. An ad called the film "The first Negro production ever made in Kansas City" and stated, "All the cast in this production are Kansas City Negroes. All the scenes were taken about the city." Charles H. Allen, the male lead, was the general manager and treasurer of the company. They planned a series of eight films that would be released in Central and South America, as well as in the U.S., and boasted of a distribution policy "that will enable it to overcome some of the difficulties usual to colored pictures." Their second release was to be called The Human Devil . No additional information concerning the company has been located.  -American Film Institute

**This film is considered lost until notified otherwise**

The Sport of the Gods (1921) [Lost Film]

The New York Age 

(New York, New York)

21 May 1921, Sat  • Page 6

San Francisco Chronicle 

(San Francisco, California)

14 Aug 1921, Sun  • Page 4

The New York Age 

(New York, New York)

21 May 1921, Sat  • Page 6

Starring:

• Elizabeth Boyer
• Edward R. Abrams
• George Edward Brown

Storyline
Reol Productions. The story deals with a man whose fidelity and loyalty are rewarded by his being thrown into prison for the crime of another. His wife, son and daughter, rather than suffer the humiliation and disgrace brought upon them by their friends in old Virginia, move to New York. The son associates with evil companions and the daughter's character is placed in jeopardy while she is working as a singer in an underworld cabaret. The mother, having been convinced that a prison sentence is the same as a divorce, is persuaded to marry a man who has schemed to get her money. The husband is finally released from jail after the real criminal has confessed and he goes to New York to join his family, only to find his wife married. After man complications, it all works out.

Secret Sorrow, The (1921) [Lost Film]

Starring:

• George Edward Brown
• Percy Verwayen
• Edna Morton
• Lawrence Chenault 
• Inez Clough 

Storyline
Reol Productions. This is the story of two brothers, one living with their mother, the other adopted by a doctor. The adopted one, Arthur, grew up to be an assistant district attorney and Joe, raised by his mother, grew up to be a notorious gangster. Joe works for Sam Dungan, a power in city politics and the owner of several notorious dives. Arthur is in love with Sam's daughter, Grace. Joe is falsely arrested for murder. Arthur, the prosecutor, calls Joe's mother to the stand (not knowing that she is also his mother) and tears at her to prove that Joe is a degenerate. Through clever work of Grace, the real murderer is apprehended and the mother and the two boys are again united, with Grace as an addition to the happy group.

The Call of His People (1921) [Lost Film]

Starring:

• Edna Morton
• Lawrence Chenault
• George Edward Brown
• Mae Kemp 

Storyline
Reol Productions. Based on the novel, The Man Who Would Be White, by Aubrey Browser. Filmed at the Irvington-on-the-Hudson, NY estate of Black millionairess, A. Lelia Walker, story by Aubrey Browser.

Nelson Holmes, a black man posing as a white man, had advanced from office boy to general manager, Nelson, hiding his true identity for obvious reasons, comes face to face with an old classmate during a job interview. Fearing that his friend will expose his true color, he hires him to be his personal secretary. When one of Nelson's competitors tries to steal important contracts, his secretary rescues the contracts. Nelson is deeply affected by his secretary's loyalty, and decides to confess his true color to his boss. His boss assures him that it is the man, not the color, that counts. 

*** This film is considered lost until notified otherwise. ***

The Burden of Race (1921) [Lost Film]

Starring:

• Percy Verwayen
• Edna Morton 
• Lawrence Chenault

Storyline
Reol Productions. At a great university he competed with the flower of young manhood and excelled both in academic achievement and in athletics. And then he met the girl - not of his own people - and for her he risked his life. In the greater university of life he grappled with the forces which made for success and or failure - and won. The girl, with no hope of that love's fruition, was his inspiration. He stoop at the pinnacle of success fame. She loved him, but between them stretched a a mighty chasm, Did a great love triumph? This is the story that grips the hearts of young and old and sends the blood coursing through the veins.

By Right of Birth (1921) [Only Surviving Works From The Lincoln Motion Picture Company]

Starring:

• Clarence Brooks
• Anita Thompson 
• Webb King

Storyline
Lincoln Motion Picture Company. Juanita Cooper is the adopted daughter of Frank Cooper and Geraldine Cooper. Geraldine backs Manuel Romero, an unscrupulous Mexican-American stockbroker, on a trip to Oklahoma to secure oil leases from Freedmen allottees, who are ignorant of the real value of their holding. Romero focuses on an allotment belonging to Helen, a missing allottee. He forges Helen's name to a lease, while searching for her. Geraldine discovers that Juanita is the missing Helene. After witnessing deceit and death, Juanita is reunited with her real mother and comes into the fortune and happiness which is hers.

The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921) [Lost Film]

Starring:

• Evelyn Preer 
• Edward R. Abrams
• Lawrence Chenault
• Louis De Bulger 
• E.G. Tatum 
• Mattie Wilkes 
• Bessie Bearden 
• Ethel Williams

Storyline
The body of Myrtle Gunsaulus, a young African-American girl, is discovered in the basement of a New York City factory. Arthur Gilpin, the African-American janitor who discovered the body, is arrested and charged with her murder.

Arthur’s sister Ida May (Evelyn Preer) contacts her former boyfriend, the attorney Sidney Wyeth (Lawrence Chenault), to defend Gilpin in court. During the trial, Wyeth redirects attention for the murder away from Gilpin to Anthony Brisbane, a white man with a history of sexual deviancy. Gilpin is exonerated while Brisbane is revealed as Myrtle Gunsaulus's killer 

Information (wiki)
Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific African-American filmmaker of the race film genre, had previously addressed the issue of violence by whites against blacks in his 1920 feature Within Our Gates, which aroused controversy. That film’s storyline, which included a portrayal of racial lynching and the sexual attack by a white man against a black woman, resulted in censorship rulings in Atlanta and other major cities throughout the U.S.

Micheaux tackled another controversial subject with his 1921 The Gunsaulus Mystery. The plot was based on the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan and the trial of Leo Frank. After an African American was first interrogated, police attention turned to Frank, the Jewish-American manager of the factory. He was prosecuted and convicted of the crime. After appeals had failed, he received commutation of his death sentence, but Frank was kidnapped and lynched on August 17, 1915.

Micheaux shot The Gunsaulus Mystery at the Estee Studios in New York City and distributed the film through his Micheaux Film Corporation. Evelyn Preer, the star of Within Our Gates, also starred in this production.

Micheaux revisited the subject again in 1935 with a sound remake, which was released under the titles Murder in Harlem (a.k.a Lem Hawkins' Confession). Especially in this version, Micheaux used the conventions of the detective story to introduce differing narratives and rework the binary nature of the trial, in which an African-American man and Jewish-American man had testified against each other.

No print of The Gunsaulus Mystery is known to exist in any archive or private collection, and it is considered to be a lost film. Events of the Mary Phagan murder would be covered in detail in the lengthy 1988 four-hour TV miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan. 

**This film is considered lost until notified otherwise**

 

The Bull-Dogger (1921) [Lost Film, Fragments Survive]

Starring:

• Bill Pickett
• Bennie Turpin
• Anita Bush

 

Storyline
Directed by Richard E. Norman. "A virile story of the golden west, featuring Bill Pickett, the Black hero of the Mexican bull ring, in death defying feats of courage and skill, such as wild horse racing, roping and tying wild steers. The picture also includes fancy and trick riding by Black cowboys and cowgirls and bull dogging and throwing with their teeth, the wildest steers on the Mexican border. This is the first feature picture of its kind, and proves conclusively that the Black cowboy is capable of doing anything the white cowboy does." - excerpt from the Exhibitor's Herald