The Emperor Jones (1933)

Original title

Emperor Jones

Directed by

Dudley Murphy

Genre

drama film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 12m

Rating

5.6 of 10 from 27 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An African American man becomes the ruler of a Caribbean island but his power leads to paranoia and downfall. The story follows his rise and his desperate flight through a forest as his past catches up with him.

theatricalintenseclaustrophobicpsychologicalbleakdramaticgroundedunsettling

What happens

The Emperor Jones is a 1933 American pre-Code film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play of the same title, directed by iconoclast Dudley Murphy, written for the screen by playwright DuBose Heyward and starring Paul Robeson in the title role (a role he played onstage, both in the US and UK), and co-starring Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, Fredi Washington and Ruby Elzy. The film was made outside of the Hollywood studio system, financed with private money from neophyte wealthy producers in Gifford A. Cochran and John Krimsky, who were best known for bringing the 1932 German film Mädchen in Uniform to American audiences. It was the only film produced by the two (Cochran stopped as a producer after a failed American rendition of The Threepenny Opera that same year). It was filmed at the Paramount studios in Astoria, Queens with the beach scene shot at Jones Beach Long Beach, New York. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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