Black Gold (1928) [Lost Film]

Starring:

• Laurence Criner
• Kathryn Boyd
• Steve Reynolds

Storyline
Filmed entirely in the area of Tatums, Oklahoma, an all-black town: Oil has been discovered on the range-land nears Tatus, and all ranching had been abandoned to the drilling of wildcat oil-wells. Mart Ashton, owner of the Circle Bar Ranch, has also caught Black Gold Fever to the extent of using all his cash and selling his large herd of cattle to finance the cost of a drilling-rig and crew. On an adjoining tract, the Ohio Company brings in a well and Ashton is put in the position of drilling an off-set well within thirty days or lose all rights to drill on his own land. However, he has ran out of money and his driller, Pete Barkley, is scheming with Walter Wonder, cashier of the Ranchman's National Bank, to delay the drilling. He borrows the needed money from the bank, but Wonder accuses him of stealing it, and the U. S. Marshal jails him. His ranch foreman, Ace Brand, knows he is innocent but is unable to prove it. With no crew and only seven days left to bring in the well, it is up... 

Eleven P.M. (1928)

Starring:

• Richard Maurice 
• Sammie Fields
• Orine Johnson
• Wanda Maurice 
• Leo Pope 
• Eugene Williams 
• H. Marion Williams

Storyline
Produced in Detroit, Michigan by little known African-American filmmaker Richard Maurice, Eleven P.M. is a surreal melodrama in which a poor violinist named Sundaisy (Maurice) tries to protect an orphan girl (Wand Maurice) from a small-time hoodlum. The story, which may or may not be a dream concocted by a struggling newspaperman, has one of the most bizarre endings in film history, when the spirit of the deceased Sundaisy possess the body of a dog in order to take vengeance upon the crook. 

This film was restored by Kino Lorber which was archived in the Library of Congress and released in a 5 disc box set: Pioneers of African American Cinema. 

Reverend S. S. Jones - Home Movies [1924-1928]

Reverend Solomon Sir Jones documented African-American life, culture, and success in Oklahoma a few years after the Tulsa Race Riots. His films demonstrate the nuance and diversity of the Black community during the period. His camera captures children, deacons, young professionals, homemakers, businessmen, community leaders, landowners, field workers, students, and neighbors. Some of his subjects included formerly enslaved men and women and their descendants who built these thriving towns. Together, these communities worked, worshiped, played celebrated, loved and mourned together. Jones takes considerable care to illustrate how they built something special - self-sustaining and self-determined societies.

-Mary N. Elliot, Museum Specialist at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture

This film was restored by Kino Lorber which was archived in the Library of Congress and released in a 5 disc box set: Pioneers of African American Cinema.