Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913)

Modeled after a popular collection of stories known as "Brother Gardener's Lime Kiln Club," the plot features three suitors vying to win the hand of the local beauty.

Directors:

T. Hayes Hunter (co-director), Edwin Middleton (co-director)

Stars:

Bert Williams, Odessa Warren Grey, Wes Jenkins

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Bert Williams	...	Bert
Odessa Warren Grey	...	The Lady
Wes Jenkins	...	Brother Gardner
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tom Brown	...	Club Member
Sam Corker Jr.	...	Man with Shotgun
Charles Gilpin	...	Club Member
Julius Glenn	...	Bar Manager
Billy Harper	...	Shorty
J. Leubrie Hill	...	Club Member
Sam Lucas	...	Club Member
Abbey Mitchell	...	The Mother
Emma Reed	...	Chicken Vendor
Walker Thompson	...	Barber Suitor
Henry Troy	...	Angry Suitor

Storyline

Modeled after a popular collection of stories known as "Brother Gardener's Lime Kiln Club," the plot features three suitors vying to win the hand of the local beauty.

---

Plot Keywords:

national film registry | 

---

Did You Know?

Trivia

Footage for this film was found among 900 cans of film in the collection of 1939 Iris Barry, founder of the film department at the Museum of Modern Art, who acquired 900 cans of film from the Actinograph Corp. Bronx Biograph studio and laboratory facilities, which was closing its film vault and planning to destroy all the film. Printing of some footage took place in 1976. In October 2014, MOMA presented the unedited film with a lecture about the film's background and reasons for it remaining unfinished.

---

Connections

Featured in America (2019)

User Reviews

An unexpected delight!

This is the oldest surviving American film with an all black cast. What does the title mean? According to Wikipedia - "The Lime-Kiln Club was a fictitious fraternal organization of African-Americans created by writer and journalist Charles Bertrand Lewis for the Detroit Free Press in the late 19th century." Apparently, the Detroit Free Press would print articles that were considered humorous in their day about this fictitious club, using African American dialect and featuring negative stereotypes.

In 1913 Biograph made this unfinished film with an all black cast featuring a black middle class holiday in a kind of amusement park. Bert Williams, a Caribbean American actor, is the star. He is shown on a date at the park with a lady played by Odessa Warren Grey. They are featured eating ice cream at the concession stand, then riding on a Merry Go Round and enjoying a lollipop while on the ride. The entire production, as restored by MOMA, runs about an hour. What I saw of it was under ten minutes in length.

There are no title cards in what I saw, but none are really necessary. Oddly enough, in every scene, you can see part of the African American cast dancing in the background. Williams wears blackface in this film and usually wore blackface in his vaudeville acts because the white public would not tolerate an actual black man in the lead of a movie or an act during the early 20th century. So by wearing blackface he paid tribute to the ruse, thus allowing the rest of the cast to take their roles unchallenged by anybody - both controversial and pragmatic.

This film actually does have one member of the cast who is white. There is a man walking about on the ride who then jumps off, smokes a cigarette, and generally just loiters about during the Merry Go Round scene, with his attention on the ride. He is probably supposed to be the ride's operator.

This film has been restored by MOMA and is in excellent condition. Youtube has a short introduction by a curator who explains a few things about the film, if you are interested. What I liked was seeing the beautiful clothes worn by everybody in the cast. They are even wearing gloves here! I wonder what they would say about midways today with people wearing shorts, flip flops, and old tee shirts to the fair?

Details

Official Sites:

Produxction Company Website

Country:

USA

Language:

None English

Release Date:

1913 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field Day

Company Credits

Production Co:

Biograph Company, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

65 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White