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The Green Pastures (film)
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Wikipedia article
as Noah
'The Green Pastures' is a 1936 American film depicting stories from the Bible as visualized by black characters. It starred Rex Ingram (in several roles, including "De Lawd"), Oscar Polk, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. It was based on the 1928 novel 'Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun' by Roark Bradford and the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Marc Connelly.
'The Green Pastures' was one of only six feature films in the Hollywood Studio era to feature an all-black cast, though elements of it were criticised by civil rights activists at the time and subsequently.G. S. Morris, [http://brightlightsfilm.com/59/59greenpastures.php "Thank God for Uncle Tom Race and Religion Collide in The Green Pastures"], 'Bright Lights', Issue 59, February 2008.
Plot summary
God tests the human race in this reenactment of Bible stories set in the world of black American folklore.
Cast
* Rex Ingram as De Lawd / Adam / Hezdrel
* Oscar Polk as Gabriel
* Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as Noah
* Frank Wilson as Moses
* George H. Reed as Mr. Deshee / Aaron
* Abraham Gleaves as Archangel
* Myrtle Anderson as Eve
* Al Stokes as Cain
* Edna Mae Harris as Zeba
* James Fuller as Cain the Sixth
* George Randol as High Priest
* Ida Forsyne as Noah's Wife
* Ray Martin as Shem
* Charles Andrews as Flatfoot
* Dudley Dickerson as Ham
* Jimmy Burress as Japheth
* Billy Cumby as Abraham / Head Magician / King of Babylon
* Ivory Williams as Jacob
* David Bethea as Aaron
* Ernest Whitman as Pharaoh
* Reginald Fenderson as Joshua
* Slim Thompson as Master of Ceremonies
* Clinton Rosemond as Prophet
* Hall Johnson Choir as Vocal Ensemble
* Willie Best as Henry - the Angel (uncredited)
* Jesse Graves as General (uncredited)
* Clarence Muse as Angel (uncredited)
* Fred Toones as Zubo (uncredited)
* Lillian Davis as Viney Prohack (uncredited)
Reception
Despite criticisms about its racial stereotyping, 'The Green Pastures' proved to be an enormously popular film. On its opening day at New York's Radio City Music Hall, tickets sold at a rate of 6,000 per hour. The film was held over for an entire year's run at some theaters. It remained the highest-grossing all-black-cast film until the release of 'Carmen Jones' in 1954.
Writing for 'The Spectator' in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a generally good review, speculating that audiences "will find [it] continuously entertaining, if only intermittently moving". Greene praised director Connelly in particular, describing scenes of "excellent" melodrama, his "ingenious [use of] pathos", and the "admirable" restraint evident in the simplicity of the settings.
Greene's only complaints about the film was that "one may feel uneasy at Mr. Connelly's humour" and his depiction of "the negro mind". Greene observed "the result is occasionally patronising, too often quaint, and at the close of the film definitely false", but ultimately he concludes that the film is "as good a religious play as one is likely to get in this age from a practiced New York writer". (reprinted in: )
A review in 'The New York Times' under the byline of "B.R.C.," while portraying the "shuffling" of its opening-night audience in terms that might be deemed racist, praised the sincerity of the production's religiosity and the aplomb of its cast, seeing in the movie "not only the 'divine comedy of the modern theatre' but something of the faith that moves mountains."
See also
* List of films about angels
References
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