Hallelujah

Overview

Hallelujah! was, for its time, an impressive achievement. Director King Vidor, anxious to make a "personal" project for the impersonal MGM studios, proposed to film a spiritual story set in the deep South with blacks as the main characters. The Texas-born Vidor was familiar with certain particulars of African-American life, having witnessed the mass baptisms and religious ceremonies of the employees of his father's lumber mills. MGM, concerned that it would lose the "bigot trade," balked until Vidor offered to direct Hallelujah without salary. The decision to film on location was problematic: talking pictures had just come in, and the existing equipment was not ideally suited for exterior scenes. Vidor elected to film most of the picture silent, then post-dub the sound once he returned to the studio; with very few exceptions, the resulting synchronization (a "maddening" process, according to Vidor) was quite convincing. The plot may seem a trifle condescending in the light of heightened racial sensitivities (even the director admitted this), but in 1929 it was considered the ultimate in realism. Nina Mae McKinney plays a voluptuous young woman who disrupts the stability of a black sharecroppers' community. Daniel L. Haynes co-stars as an impressionable young man who is moved to manslaughter for the sake of McKinney. He is saved from himself when he embraces religion (hence the title). True to MGM's predictions, Hallelujah ran into resistance from southern exhibitors (and not a few northern ones), who were fearful that "too many" blacks would be attracted to their theatres. This problem was solved by a loose network of independent exhibitors who were willing to give the film a try; once the big-time theatre chain owners realized that the film would draw a mixed, rather than exclusively black, clientele, they were more receptive to the film. Still, Hallelujah was more a critical than a financial success.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/27/2013
UPC:	0883316860175
Original Release:	1929
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:40:00
Sales rank:	47,525

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Daniel L. Haynes	Zeke
Nina Mae McKinney	Chick
William Fontaine	Hot Shot
Fanny Belle DeKnight	Mammy
Harry Gray	Parson
Everett McGarrity	Spunk
Victoria Spivey	Missy Rose
Robert Couch	Johnson Kid
Walter Tait	Johnson Kid
Milton Dickerson	Johnson Kid

Technical Credits

King Vidor

Wanda Tuchock

Ransom Rideout

King Vidor	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Wanda Tuchock	Screenwriter
Ransom Rideout	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Hallelujah! was the first sound-era film with an all-black cast to be produced by a major studio. It's a good example of the kind of distinctive, commercially risky films that MGM producer Irving Thalberg was willing to produce to keep major talent happy -- in this case, director King Vidor. The film was also one of the first shot on-location without sound and then dubbed in post-production, yet another innovation from recording genius Douglas Shearer. Hollywood was still decades away from studio films with black casts helmed by black directors, but the Texas-born Vidor does a credible job of presenting life among rural blacks in the Deep South. Nina Mae McKinney's standout performance as the temptress Chick earned her a five-year contract with MGM. Regrettably, the studio failed to find roles for her, and the contract restricted her career more than it advanced it.

All Movie Guide - Richard Gilliam