Birthright (1924 film)

Birthright is a 1924 silent film by American director Oscar Micheaux. Produced in 10 reels, it is adapted from Thomas Sigismund Stribling's novel of the same title (1922). The film is now lost.

Birthright
Directed byOscar Micheaux
Written byOscar Micheaux
Based onBirthright
by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
Produced byOscar Micheaux
Starring
Production
company
Micheaux Film Corporation
Release date
  • January 14, 1924 (1924-01-14)
Running time
10 reels
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent

The cast included J. Homer Tutt (as Peter Siner), Evelyn Preer (as Cissie Deldine), Salem Tutt Whitney (as Tump Pack), Lawrence Chenault, and W. B. F. Crowell.[1] The film explores experiences of a young African-American man who returns to a small Tennessee town after getting a college degree. Of mixed-race (called mulatto in the book), he struggles against the systemic racial discrimination of his society around the First World War.

Micheaux later rewrote the adaptation, and co-produced and directed a new 35 mm version of Birthright as a talkie, in 1938. It had a new cast. He filmed it in New Jersey.

Cast

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References

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  1. ^ Couvares, Francis G., ed. (1996). Movie Censorship and American Culture. University of Massachusetts Press. p 173: "... from members of his own community who resented such depictions. It seems logical that Micheaux would anticipate criticism from both blacks and whites again in response to his 1924 film Birthright, which portrayed an African American ...
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