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Title: The Green Pastures (1936)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Rex Ingram | ... | De Lawd / Adam / Hezdrel | |
| Oscar Polk | ... | Gabriel | |
| Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson | ... | Noah (as Eddie Anderson) | |
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Frank H. Wilson | ... | Moses (as Frank Wilson) |
| George Reed | ... | Mr. Deshee | |
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Abraham Gleaves | ... | Archangel |
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Myrtle Anderson | ... | Eve |
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Al Stokes | ... | Cain |
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Edna Mae Harris | ... | Zeba (as Edna M. Harris) |
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James Fuller | ... | Cain the Sixth |
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George Randol | ... | High Priest |
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Ida Forsyne | ... | Noah's Wife |
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Ray Martin | ... | Shem |
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Charles Andrews | ... | Flatfoot (as Chas. Andrews) |
| Dudley Dickerson | ... | Ham | |
God, heaven, and several Old Testament stories, including the Creation and Noah's Ark, are described supposedly using the perspective of rural, black Americans.
I first saw "The Green Pastures" quite by accident as a 13 year-old while visiting grandparents in Detroit, Michigan many, many years ago...I never forgot it.
Years later, in college, while on a date, I was telling my date about it and we stopped by the school library so I could find a copy of the play to show her...she loved it, too. I've since bought the tape and watch it every now-and-then when I want to smile and feel good.
I remember asking my mom about the movie when I first saw it and always remembered her response..."how do you think the little black children in the movie pictured God and others in the Bible?" And that, of course, is exactly what Marc Connelly was trying to get us to think about.
Though the original play/movie may have met resistance in the South, it was a hit in New York. To the eternal historical revisionists of today who see nothing but stereotypes and negative images, I'd suggest you take another look.
Country folk of the early part of this century did talk with accents and few had much education (whites as well as blacks). The dialog of the film is less a contrived stereotype than it is a snapshot of what the simple life was like. It's not hard for me to imagine a dedicated Mr. Deshee teaching kids in Sunday School about the good book. Nor is it hard to understand why they might picture pharoe's guards in double-breasted suits like the gangsters in the news of their youth, or relating any number of other scenes to what was familiar to them.
Connelly was not trying to convert viewers to religion...he was trying to get those already converted to see the personal relationship with God enjoyed by all his children, regardless of their station in life.
There are no whites in the movie, just as there were no whites in the immediate community where the story takes place. This movie was not made with the burden of every social dilemma we've struggled with over the years. To blindly force modern perceptions and racial baggage on it does nothing but dampen the simple joy of this unique gem.