-
Production Designing 'Fruitvale Station' -
Exclusive: Lorraine Hansberry Biopic In Development ... -
'MadCap: New York' - How We Shot A Feature ... -
What’s Wrong With 'Detropia' - A Detroit ... -
SIFF Review: Painterly, Meditative 'The Forgotten ...
-
This Week in Black Television: Daniel Sunjata ... -
What Would A 'Breaking Bad' Spin-Off Be Without ... -
Sorry, But I Don't Need The New York Times ... -
Will Either Of These Black Actors Get The ... -
What Is It That Terrifies Dorothy Dandridge ...
-
My (Short) Conversation w/ Screenwriter Geoffrey ... -
'End Of Watch' Explores A Post-Racial Ho ... -
Interview - For the Actors and Actresses: ... -
VOD Review: BBC Films' 'Shoot The Messenger' ... -
What Does The Future Of 'Black Cinema' Look ...
5 Netflix Streaming Titles You May Not Know ...
African Diaspora Palme D'Or Winners In Cannes ...
What's Missing From The WGA's '101 Best Written ...
Review: 'RE-EMERGING: The Jews of Nigeria' ...
An Industry Without... Black People (What ...
For The Love Of Movies... Can We Talk?"The Crowning Experience" - A Lost Black Film No One Knows About
It's heavy, huge book well over 700 pages and we're talking THOUSANDS of movie reviews. It's going to take me a while to get through it to say the least. And I have the New York Times Film Reviews 1969-1970 Volume 6 to get though next.
Why do you ask? Because 1) it's fun and 2) literally EVERY SINGLE FILM that was made and released during the 1960's opened in N.Y., even if it played for just one week and never opened in other parts of the country which was common back then.
But the other important reason is because I firmly believe that the 1960's to the mid 70's were the most important period of filmmaking ever. That was the period when filmmaking was, at least for me, at its most interesting and innovative. Boundaries were crossed. Taboos were broken. Movie studios and independent producers were willing to take risks. Cinema was more "adult". And it was during that period when the MPAA movie ratings system was introduced - in November 1968 to be exact (TRIVIA: The Split starring Jim Brown was the first film to be rated "R") Filmmaking changed forever - for better and for worse.
Reading though the book I've discovered countless movies that I've never heard of before and I thought I had heard of everything. But one film that really stood out when I read a review of it, but totally unknown to me, was the black dramatic musical film The Crowning Experience which opened N.Y. in late October 1960. However the film originally opened months earlier in Los Angeles in February that same year. But I could not find any information if it ever played anywhere else in the country, nor could I find a single video clip from the film. It's been lost to faded memory.
The film was actually based on a touring stage play based on the life of Dr Mary McLeod Bethune, the pioneering educator and civil rights activist who became an advsior to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though in the film she's called Emma Tremaine played by Murial Smith.
The film has an unusual backstory. It was produced, financed and self-distributed by a pacifist anti- Communist religious group (some called it a cult) known as Moral Re-Armament that was based in Mackinac Island, Michigan and which believed that people needed to be armed not with guns, but with a "new moral outlook"
And the film was directed by three directors, Rickard (that's the way it's spelled) Tegstrom (who was a cinematographer, including one film Freedom, which was made in Nigeria in the late 50's and written by Nigerian screenwriers), Harold Schuster who had directed a few features before Experience including a Tarzan movie and some TV episodes and Marion Clayton Anderson who was an actress who appeared in a few Hollywood movies, but also acted in several plays produced by Moral Re-Armament.
The lead actress, Murial Smith, played the original Carmen Jones on Broadway in the early 40's (long before Dorothy Dandridge in the 1954 film version) and did some voiceover singing work for movies where her voice was dubbed in for actresses in musical numbers. Experience was one of only three movies she actually appeared in and her only major role of substance.
Other than that the film is a complete mystery That is, except for this other still from the film which is captioned: "Communist agents plotting to destroy an American Negro university by subverting top students"
And for the record, The N.Y. Times gave The Crowning Experience a favorable review.
13 Comments
Trishia Avery | April 3, 2013 3:42 PM
I saw this film and have been looking for it ever since, I use to have a record with the songs and everything on it and would love to find one of those also, it was a wonderful film and the people in it were awesome.
Harold | December 11, 2012 4:11 AM
I saw this film about a dozen times as a kid. Wonderful music, beautifully shot. I still remember some of the songs, "The World Walked into My Heart Today", "We Never Give a Damn What Some Folks Say", "Sweet Potato Pie".
It would truly be tragic if there are no surviving prints of this film.
Cheryl Scott Southard | July 23, 2012 4:43 PM
My mother took me to see this movie and I never forgot it. That is why I looked it up today. I have asked many people if they remembered the film and no one does.
Cynthia | April 24, 2012 9:36 PM
Hmm...I'm curious as well. Good info Sergio.
MiddleMyatt | April 24, 2012 3:55 PM
I would love to see this film -- thanks for making us aware of it! I've also been searching for a Black film called "Cool World" -- to no avail.
Akimbo | April 24, 2012 11:35 AM
The book sounds really cool; got me wondering if there are editions that cover earlier time periods. The "communist agents" make the movie seem a little silly, but I guess every film generation has its go-to bogeyman.
Neziah | April 24, 2012 2:34 AM
I've discovered many lost and obscure black films through several different sources, and I've found a lot of great stuff that way. Many of these films quickly became some of my all-time favorites. Most don't realize that our people have made so many amazing films (especially if the conversation is open to black African cinema), so it makes me sad that many serious film buffs will never get the chance to see the majority of them.