Milton Williams Movies
A landmark independent film, Nothing but a Man is the first dramatic story featuring a largely black cast created for an integrated audience (the work of black filmmakers such as Oscar Micheaux was intended for audiences who patronized black-only theaters). White filmmakers Michael Roemer and Robert M. Young traveled through the South in 1962 in search of ideas for a fiction feature set during the growing turbulence of the civil rights era. Their story, based in Alabama but shot in southern New Jersey, is only tangentially related to the movement toward equality. Duff, an itinerant black railroad laborer (Ivan Dixon), romances and marries Josie, a small-town preacher's daughter (Abbey Lincoln). Duff insists on being treated with respect, but his stance is personal rather than political. After he settles down in the town with Josie, he comes up against white bosses who want to make sure he knows his place and black men such as Josie's father who don't want to rock the boat for fear of losing what little advantage they have. Duff's relationship with his own father (Julius Harris), a broken-down drunk living in Birmingham, teaches him valuable lessons about dignity and self-worth. The film was lauded at both the New York and Venice festivals but received limited release in theaters specializing in foreign and independent film. However, word of mouth in the black community (where Nothing but a Man was for years a staple on the 16 mm rental market, in the days before VCRs) and continued attention by film historians have ensured the status of Nothing but a Man as a pioneering and enduring work. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, (more)
- 1963
No relation to the later Ralph Bakshi semi-animated feature of the same name, Cool World is set in the meanest sections of Harlem. Hampton Clayton plays Duke, a powerful street gang member who claims that he is motivated by the Black Muslim movement. His subsequent criminal activities are thus not merely for gain, but as a means to declare black supremacy over the white establishment. One of director Shirley Clarke's few mainstream projects, Cool World was the first commercial film venture to be shot on location in Harlem. The largely unknown cast features future luminaries (and husband and wife) Clarence Williams III and Gloria Foster. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hampton Clanton, Yolanda Rodriguez, (more)
- 1948
Its many production flaws aside, Miracle in Harlem is a pretty good example of the "all-black" films prevalent in the segregated 1940s. The story concerns a Harlem candy store that is taken over by a gang of crooks. Julie Weston (Sheila Guyse), stepdaughter of the store's elderly owner (Hilda Ofley), resists not only the takeover, but the amorous advances of the head crook's delinquent son (Lawrence Criner). When the ringleader Kenneth Freeman turns up dead, Julie finds herself the main suspect, but a series of unbelievable plot contrivances come to her rescue. Miracle in Harlem is worth seeing for the presence in the cast of Jack Carter, who 10 years earlier had starred in Orson Welles' all-black MacBeth, and Stepin Fetchit, who, after being banned from mainstream Hollywood productions for his stereotypical performances, goes through his time-tested "lazy" routines once more. Musical highlights include a number by the Juanita Hall Choir, led by the woman who'd later gain Broadway fame as Bloody Mary in South Pacific. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sheila Guyse, Stepin Fetchit, (more)
