Murder in Harlem (1935)

 'Murder in Harlem' is black film pioneer Oscar Micheaux's remake of his 1921 silent film 'The Gunsaulus Mystery'. The story is inspired by the case of Leo Frank, a Jewish man executed for the murder of a young factory girl in Georgia in 1912. Here the innocent accused of a murdering a young, white, female factory employee is a black man, or negro in the parlance of the time. That man's sister and lawyer set out to find who the real killer is, knowing that is the only way to save his life

The sister and lawyer had a previous almost romantic past, which circumstances kept from really getting off the ground. We see those events early in the film, and they provide a back ground for what follows. Clarence Brooks wants to make sure the innocent Lorenzo McClane is spared, but he also wants to win the love of the comely Dorothy Van Engle. 

One of Lorenzo's co-workers at the factory (he was a night watchman, this other man a janitor) Alec Lovejoy, has come into some money recently and is living large. Dorothy sets out to seduce him and finds out that he was paid this money to keep quite, his white boss Andrew S. Bishop is the real killer. Only in the end it turns out he wasn't. 

Bishop had attempted to put the moves on his young female subordinate, was rejected, there was a struggle and she was left unconscious. Upon returning with the janitor to the place he left her, with the intention of moving her, they find she has died. Bishop thinks it was his fault, so he frames McClane. However it was actually the girls jealous boyfriend who finished her off. Luckily Dorothy and Clarence figure this out, I was impressed with the twist because it didn't really seem to be needed, but was a nice something extra. 

This is very much a film of its time, while simultaneously being very at odds with what one expects from a film of this time. The structure is really more novelistic them filmic, which gives the movie in addition to the racial aspects something else to make it stand out. The acting is all over the place, from the relatively subtle to the supper hammy. There is a prolonged jazz club sequence that seems to mainly be in the film to incorporates some music. Though the film for the most part doesn't feel set in Harlem, the factory seems more rural and there is a newspaper clip shown which puts a story point in Illinois. I suspect Harlem may have been added to the title after filming wrapped. A surprisingly solid outing of a film given all that must have been working against it. ***