370 - The Emperor Jones (1933)

Dudley Murphy’s adaptation of this Eugene O’Neill picaresque play follows the tumultuous rise of Pullman porter Brutus Jones, played by the peerless Paul Robeson. We are taken through musically-punctuated examples of the early twentieth-century African American experience until Jones’ ambition and hubris drive him to become the despot of a Caribbean island.   If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman (1956).