With a series of long takes and frontal camera set-ups, Micheaux provides a record of several cabaret acts, using intertitles to separate the individual numbers. This quietly outrageous film begins with the high-toned Heywood Choir singing "Watermelon time" and concludes with Amon Davis playing a preacher using heavy blackface. Amon Davis was known as "the Back Biting Comedian, Par Excellence", and his sermon is one of Micheaux's many notable send-ups of the clergy.
When a criminal named King Fu who has terrorized a city substitutes himself for a stage actor who resembles him, the staff and spectators at that night's show think the actor is giving an unusually good performance.
Katusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to.
First of several filmed versions of a popular period operetta, in which an early 18th century noblewoman in Poland falls in love with a revolutionary student activist.
A smart young manicurist works in a hotel where she earns big money by tricking businessmen by persuading them to do certain deals where she has a commission.
Chick Hewes is released from prison and finds work as an accountant. Two years later, Chick's crooked friend, Benny LaMarr, to whom he is indebted for past kindnesses, steals a diamond necklace from the home safe of the district attorney.
Lee is a fresh young kid from the South when he gets a job with The Press. His first assignment on gangsters gets his name in the paper, the police on a raid and Lee in the hospital.
A mysterious master criminal known as The Voice plots with his gang to sabotage the Milesburg Oil Company, but the rightful heir has a secret army of her own to protect her rights.
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Have you watched The Darktown Revue yet? What did you think about it?
