DOCUMENTARY FILM
The only surviving clip from Reol's movies. "The Secret Sorrow" 1921
Preserved by USC SCA HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive.
ABOUT
Before the Harlem Renaissance illuminates early 20th-century black entertainment, theater, and silent film. Robert Levy (1888-1959), a theatre producer from New York, was among the pioneers of the early uplift movement. With over a hundred serious drama productions that Lafayette Players and Levy mounted together, they were among the first to showcase Black actors' talent performing a wide range of sophisticated and meaningful characters at the times when the stereotypical roles were all that was available for African Americans.
Set in Harlem (1916-1919) and Los Angeles (1928-1930), the documentary tells the story of the famous Lafayette Players, an all-black cast drama company, and the Reol Productions Corporation, a race film company founded by Levy in 1920.
Under Levy's management, the Lafayette Players performed in 110 memorable productions. From plays written by Shakespeare, Goethe, and Dumas to George M Cohan, the all-black cast were noted for the quality of their performances.
Production: BHR Productions
Release date: 2024
Duration: 80 minutes
A'Lelia Bundles
Journalist, Madam C. J. Walker Great-Granddaughter and Biographer
"Robert Levy and Oscar Micheaux were both working towards the same goal - they wanted to elevate the African American actors and access artistry."
Christina Petersen
PhD, Professor Film Studies, Eckerd College
"Levy is credited in some press at the time as being the one to pioneer the idea of the black movie star." (quote source Motion Classics 1922, February issue).
David Krasner,
Writer, Educator Chair of Theatre at Five Towns College, Long Island
In 1916 "Levy served a conduit between the white Broadway theatre that was prevalent at the time and moving the plays into Harlem, and that brought opportunities for black actors to be in shows they would not ordinarily be in''.
Patrick McGilligan
Author, Oscar Micheaux’s Biographer
"The Lafayette Players could do anything... They were the New York Theatre Guild before there was the New York Theatre Guild ..."
Beginning 1921, Levy assembled a group of actors from Lafayette Players and went on to produce Hollywood-style race films for Black audiences. Over the next two years, Reol studio made two documentaries, one comedy short, and nine feature-length silent films most notably “The Sport of the Gods” from Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s iconic novel. The movies were based on stories written by Black writers and featured Black actors.
The noted actors who worked with Levy in theatre and film were Evelyn Preer, Clarence Muse, Abbie Mitchell, Charles Gilpin, Edna Morton, Cleo Desmond, Andrew Bishop, and over four dozen more stage and screen African American artists.
The documentary features interviews with experts in black entertainment history, press sources from the era ( The New Ages, The Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, California Eagle, etc) the UCLA Johnson (George P.) Negro Film collection, and scholarly research.
Unfortunately, all of Reol’s nitrate-based films were lost. Only lobby cards and stills remain. After thirty years of searching, the documentary team discovered in University of Southern California SCA HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive) two surviving clips from Reol's “The Secret Sorrow” (1921).
The New York Sun published on the fill page in 1917 a review of the first-ever production of William Shakespeare with an all-black cast, actors of Lafayette Players, of Harlem. General Manager: Robert Levy
The Sport of the Gods film, based on the novel written by Paul Laurence Dumbar, 1902
Super feature, released in 1921 Produced by Reol Pictures, Producer Robert Levy
Add for Lafayette Players at Lincoln Theatre, LA "Up in Mabel's Room" starring Evelyn Preer, 1929
Add for Lafayette Players' performance in Harlem, 1918 ”Faust" play in operatic form, starring soprano Abbie Mitchell
Add for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" drama starring Clarence Muse Lafayette Theatre, Harlem, 1917
The play was relevant to black actors and audiences
"because, in a way, it was every black man's story. Black men too have been split creatures inhabiting one body."
- Clarence Muse