NEGRO FILM.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17976, 22 March 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEGRO FILM.

MAKES VIVID IMPRESSION. “Hallelujah,” an astounding film of life as it is lived to-day by the American negroes, with an entirely negro cast, was shown privately at the Empire, Leicester Square, London, last month. Revivalist meetings, with- frenzied crowds singing, shrieking and swaying hysterically, an open-air baptism by immersion, negro dance halls, domestic scenes, and the workers in the cotton fields sweep across the screen. Amazement is the first feeling (says a London paper), but one soon grows conscious of the rich music of the voices, the beauty and skill of the camera work, the throbbing and unforced emotion of the vast crowds. Such singing has never been heard from the screen before. Much of the dialogue is almost incomprehensible to English cars, but the story is straightforward enough. The hero —played with rare passion and talent by Daniel Haynes—is a negro evangelist who runs away with as enticing a “high yaller” girl as ever existed (Nina Mae McKinney). She leaves him for an earlier sweetheart, but the hero tracks down his rival and lulls him. After serving time he returns to his people. There are unforgettable things in “Hallelujah.” Zeke, the hero, bringing home his dead brother's body; fleeting glimpses of faces and snatches of song at the revivalist gatherings; the painful struggling of the two men through endless swamps; and, more than all, the inspired bearing and superb voice of Mr Haynes, give this film a quality rare on the screen. To King Vidor, who conceived, and executed this impressive picture, unstinted praise is due.