Hallelujah

A true cinematic milestone, this 1929 feature film was the first from a major studio to feature an all-black cast—not to mention the first talking picture directed by King Vidor, whose silent-era films included such classics as The Big Parade and The Crowd. Hallelujah serves up a fairly straightforward story of redemption, built around a poor cotton farmer, Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes), who becomes a fire-and-brimstone preacher but succumbs to the temptations of the flesh, personified in good-time girl Chick (Nina Mae McKinney, whose unmistakable talent was generally wasted in her innumerable film appearances as a maid or nanny). The film plays into some unfortunate cultural stereotypes here and there, but on the whole it's remarkably dignified and sympathetic, and nicely informed by Vidor's directorial flourishes—which include creative staging nearly unheard of at this early point in talking-picture development—and the wholesale interpolation of musical numbers that draw not only on traditional African-American forms of gospel, blues, and folk, but also on pop tunes, as embodied in two Irving Berlin-written songs. Hallelujah may seem more than a little crude by today's standards, but is actually far more dynamic (especially in its first half) than most films of the era, and boasts great historic significance to boot. Presented with an excellent transfer, DVD extras include an audio commentary by film historians Donald Bogle and Avery Clayton, and two vintage musical shorts featuring McKinney and the Nicholas Brothers. Recommended. (E. Hulse)