Hot Picks
|
|
|
Moon Over Harlem
USA 1939
produced by Edgar G. Ulmer for Meteor Productions, Sack Attractions
directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
starring Buddy Harris, Cora Green, Izinetta Wilcox, Earl Gough, Zerita Steptean, Petrina Moore, Daphne Fray, Mercedes Gilbert, Frances Harrod, Alec Lovejoy, Walter Richardson, Slim Thompson, Freddie Robinson, Joe Bunn, Marieluise Bechet, Archie Cross, William Woodward, John Fortune, Autrey Talbird, Marie Young, Sidney Bechet, Christopher Columbus & his Swing Crew
story by Mathew Mathews, screenplay by Shirley Ulmer (as Sherle Castle), dialogue by Mathew Mathews
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Chambermaid Minnie (Cora Green) marries wealthy Dollar Bill (Buddy
Harris) - much to the dismay of her daughter Sue (Izinetta Wilcox),
because Dollar Bill is also lusting after her, and apart from that she
also distrusts the man. And she should too, because Dollar Bill is
secretly a mobster, running an extortion racket, exactly the thing Sue's
boyfriend Bob (Earl Gough) crusades against ...
Eventually, Minnie has to realize she can't pay the tuition for Sue's
school for this year, but Dollar Bill agrees to help out. Reluctantly Sue
accepts his money ... but in return, he tries to get into her pants, and
when they are both caught by Minnie, he is quick to put the blame on Sue -
and Minnie believes him and throws her own daughter out of ehr appartment.
Desperate to earn her tuition herself, Sue becomes a showgirl and a
singer, and quite a success.
Back home, Dollar Bill, is confronted by some of his rivals, and
eventually someone draws a gun - and kills Minnie, who just happens to be
in harm's way and catches a bullet meant for her husband ... At the
funeral, Sue blames herself for her mother's death, only now realizing
that she should have reconciled with her mother long ago. Dollar Bill
meanwhile gets into another gunfight, only this time he is less lucky and
gets bumped off ...
An all-black gangster drama that, like all all-black movies of its
time, was made on a shoestring. Still director Edgar G.Ulmer uses quite a
few tricks he has learned during the years of making Bs to make the film
look bigger than it actually is, and he is helped by a better than usual
script that gives the tried-and-true gangster story a political subtext
that even dares to espose the black gangsters as mere contractees of the
white mob.
Certainly, Moon over Harlem is far from being a great film, but
it's not without its points of interest.
|