Hell-Bound Train
Pioneers of African-American Cinema • 50m
Eloyce Gist, James Gist • United States • 1930
Arguably the most significant discovery in our Pioneers set.
Arguably the most significant rediscovery in Pioneers of African-American Cinema. The film is the work of self-taught filmmakers James and Eloyce Gist, African-American evangelists who employed cinema as a tool for their traveling ministry. Their surreal visual allegories were screened in churches and meeting halls, accompanied by a sermon and the passing of a collection plate. Rather than having a linear story, the film is instead a catalog of iniquity, a car-by-car dramatization of the sins of the Jazz Age (including gambling, dancing, alcohol, and the mistreatment of animals), presided over by a horned devil, culminating in a colossal derailment (a model train tossed into a bonfire). Admittedly, the production values are minimal—being shot with hand-held 16mm equipment with natural light, and without audio—but the surreality of it all makes for a compelling viewing experience, and shows that renegade, visionary filmmakers can be found in the most unexpected places.
Up Next in Pioneers of African-American Cinema
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Hot Biskits
Spencer Williams • United States • 1931
A one-reel comedy short about high-stakes mini-golf.
Virtually unseen for more than 80 years, Spencer Williams’s first film is a one-reel comedy short in which a rivalry between two men is played out in a high-stakes game of mini-golf. For years, the film...
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Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled
R.W. Phillips • United States • 1918
A clever knockabout comedy.
One of Ebony Film Corporation’s most ambitious comedies is, like most of their surviving work, tragically marred by the decomposition of the nitrate film stock. Fortunately, enough of the storyline shines through so that it may st...
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Ten Minutes to Live
Oscar Micheaux • United States • 1932
An early experiment in sound cinema.
Resisting the stagebound atmosphere of The Exile, Oscar Micheaux found ways to shoot a talking picture on location, without cumbersome and expensive audio recording equipment. He did this by making one of his characters ...
