Chicago Film Lovers In For Treats With Rare Screenings Of Black Silent 'Within Our Gates,' Spanish-language 'Dracula'
By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 4, 2013 8:00PM
One original poster for Oscar Micheaux's movie Within Our Gates declaims, "This sensational play takes up a problem in which every member of the Colored Race is vitally interested," while another says, "It Will Hold You Spellbound! Full Of Details That Will Make You Grit Your Teeth In Silent Indignation."
Filmed largely in Chicago and released in 1920, it's the earliest African-American-directed feature film still known to exist. And it's anything but genteel: the story centers on a black schoolteacher who journeys northward to raise money for her school back home in the Deep South, confronting racism as well as the discovery that she's the daughter of a white man. As Nick Davis puts it, "Micheaux's critiques of bad habits within the African-American community are as lucid as his indictments of white-supremacist ideology. The film wholly avoids a Manichean division between black saints and white predators, and the introductions of romance and religion among the film's active concerns do interesting things to our views of several characters."
That the film survives at all is one of those quirks of happenstance all too rare in film history: feared lost for decades, a single print was unearthed in Spain in the 1970's, which was eventually restored by the Library of Congress. As part of the Music Box Silent Cinema Series it gets a rare screening at noon Saturday, Feb. 9, with full organ accompaniment by Dennis Scott.
Talk about rare: after Bela Lugosi had hung up his cape for the day, an entirely different cast and director took over the standing sets of 1931's Dracula to produce Drácula, a Spanish-language version destined for the international market. It's actually longer than the Lugosi version, and has sexier women. And more rats.
It's been released on various home video formats as a bonus feature, but it's seldom screened on film for a simple reason: an English-subtitled 35mm print has never been produced. The Northwest Chicago Film Society says pish to all that, and for their screening at the Portage Theater they've procured Universal's "vault" print while preparing electronic subtitles to be projected in sync. Did we mention it's showing on Valentine's Day Eve? Hot-blooded indeed.
Within Our Gates screens Saturday, Feb. 9 at noon at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave. Drácula screens Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 7:30pm at the Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave.