Hallelujah!
"Hallelujah!" is a landmark film directed by King Vidor, notable for being the first mainstream Hollywood studio production featuring an all-black cast. Made in the late 1920s, the film was shot on location in Tennessee and Arkansas and aimed to authentically represent "real Negro folk culture." Vidor faced significant challenges in securing funding for the project, ultimately investing his own salary to bring the film to fruition. The cast included Nina Mae McKinney, a young Broadway performer, who portrayed Chick, and Daniel L. Haynes as Zekiel "Zeke" Johnson, the lead character. The film combined innovative sound techniques with visual storytelling, leading to an Academy Award nomination for Vidor. While it was received positively by some white journalists, reactions from the black press were mixed due to the portrayal of African American characters, which sometimes leaned on stereotypes. Despite its controversial reception, "Hallelujah!" paved the way for future all-black musicals and remains an essential part of film history. Nina Mae McKinney’s involvement marked a significant moment as she became the first African American female lead in a major studio release.
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Hallelujah!
Identification: An early film musical about a sharecropper trying to live an honest life while lusting after a beautiful but devious young woman
Director: King Vidor
Date: 1929
A project personally developed by film director King Vidor, Hallelujah! was the first mainstream Hollywood studio film to feature an all-black cast. Shot in Tennessee and Arkansas, this innovative combination of location footage and emerging sound techniques introduced actor Nina Mae McKinney to audiences and earned Vidor an Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
Intending to make a film depicting “real Negro folk culture” for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM), Vidor was unable to sell the idea to studio chairman Nicholas Schenck until Vidor offered to invest his entire salary in a dollar-for-dollar deal for the project. To keep within budget, Vidor shot silent footage on location and then added dialogue and sound effects in the studio. Vidor also sought “unknown” stage actors from New York and Chicago who could be paid less but who also contributed believable performances. Vidor cast Show Boat understudy Daniel L. Haynes in the lead role as sharecropper-turned-preacher Zekiel “Zeke” Johnson and selected seventeen-year-old Nina Mae McKinney, a Broadway chorus girl in the show Blackbirds of 1928, to play Chick, the juke-joint dancer who leads Zeke astray. (Vidor’s initial preference for well-known performers Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters would undoubtedly have increased the budget.)
Vidor faced numerous obstacles making such an ambitious “all-talking” picture, but the results were impressive, blending a stunning visual style with credible dialogue and musical numbers. Extras hired from a Tennessee Baptist church added authenticity to a baptismal scene, and Vidor’s use of traditional spirituals added a redemptive quality to material considered unsavory by Schenck, who was concerned with exhibitors’ reactions, particularly in the South.
Impact
Hallelujah! was embraced by popular white journalists, but the reaction of the black press was mixed. Vidor’s portrayals of African Americans were based on stereotypes, resulting in characters either portrayed as idealists or animalistic, but his sincere intentions provided a step forward, creating a model for subsequent all-black musicals. Despite being banned by the Southern Theatre Foundation, the film was booked in some southern venues. The first African American to play the female lead in a major studio release, Nina Mae McKinney signed a five-year contract with MGM but worked primarily in Europe as a dancer and actor, playing a major role as the wife of Bosambo (Paul Robeson) in the British epic Sanders of the River (1935).
Bibliography
Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2001.
Friedman, Ryan Jay. Hollywood’s African American Films: The Transition to Sound. Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2011.
Jones, G. William. Black Cinema Treasures: Lost and Found. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1997.