Within Our Gates (1920)

Director:

Oscar Micheaux

Writers:

Gene DeAnna (restoration titles)
Oscar Micheaux (writer)

Release Date:

12 January 1920 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated negro woman with a shocking past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished negro youths.

Plot Keywords:

Racial | Philanthropy | Education | Lynching | Classism

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Evelyn Preer	...	Sylvia Landry
Flo Clements	...	Alma Prichard
James D. Ruffin	...	Conrad Drebert
Jack Chenault	...	Larry Prichard
William Smith	...	Detective Philip Gentry
Charles D. Lucas	...	Dr. V. Vivian
Bernice Ladd	...	Mrs. Geraldine Stratton
Mrs. Evelyn	...	Mrs. Elena Warwick
William Stark	...	Jasper Landry
Mattie Edwards	...	Jasper's Wife
Ralph Johnson	...	Philip Gridlestone
E.G. Tatum	...	Efram, Gridlestone's Servant
Grant Edwards	...	Emil Landry
Grant Gorman	...	Armand Gridlestone
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Leigh Whipper

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

USA

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Capital City Studios, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Micheaux Book & Film Company

Trivia:

This film was thought to be lost until it resurfaced in the early-1990s, in the Filmoteca Espanol in Madrid, Spain.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "The American Experience: Midnight Ramble (#7.4)" (1994)

The earliest surviving film from a black director

"Within Our Gates" is of enormous historical interest as a remnant of a brief period in the early twenties/late teens when there were (due to segregation laws) films made and distributed specifically by and for African-Americans. In this way, it has most deservedly been chosen for placement in the National Film Registry.

By today's standards the film is as silly, half-baked, and paper-thin as something by a high school playwright. The performances are pretty atrocious, but for the most part they are at home with the style of acting that pervaded films of the silent era.

It dealt with provocative issues of the time, such as overt racism, lynching, and the sorry state of education for the black community. Eighty years later we may have done a bit of shoring up, but no one's foolish enough to say that we're doing any better today. One positive thing that can be said is that a film dealing with these subjects today is encouraged, whereas in 1920 "Within Our Gates" was crushed by disapproving educators, legislators, and spineless distributors.