The Flying Ace
Pioneers of African-American Cinema • 1h 5m
Richard E. Norman • United States • 1926
A rural crime drama about rival aviators.
A rural crime drama revolving around a pair of rival aviators, THE FLYING ACE illuminates the fact that many films made for African-American audiences were less concerned with race than with making popular entertainment in the traditional Hollywood style. Filmed in the Arlington area of Jacksonville, Florida, THE FLYING ACE is a unique aviation melodrama in that no airplanes actually leave the ground (the spectacular flight scenes being performed on terra firma, in front of neutral backdrops). Norman divided the film into four chapters, so that exhibitors could show the film as a feature or as a four-episode serial. The film is buoyed by the presence of Norman Studios regular Steve “Peg” Reynolds as the hero’s one-legged sidekick (no pun intended), who in one memorable scene rides a bicycle while firing a rifle built into the shaft of his crutch.
Up Next in Pioneers of African-American Cinema
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The Girl from Chicago
Oscar Micheaux • United States • 1932
Exploring the cultural rift between the urban and the rural.
A remake of Oscar Micheaux’s now-lost 1926 silent film The Spider’s Web THE GIRL FROM CHICAGO is another film that explores the cultural rift between the urban and the rural, set in both Harlem an...
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The Scar of Shame
Frank Peregini • United States • 1929
A woman is rescued from her abusive father by a composer.
When a young woman escapes from her abusive father, she is rescued by an aspiring composer, but encounters opposition from his class-conscious mother. This edition of THE SCAR OF SHAME includes four...
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The Symbol of the Unconquered
Oscar Micheaux • United States • 1920
Oscar Micheaux's response to BIRTH OF A NATION.
A response, of sorts, to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. In Oscar Micheaux’s rendition, the Klan (here renamed the Knights of the Black Cross) is not an organization devoted to racial purity, but a gang...
