The Exile was a 1931

1931 in film

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 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film by Oscar Micheaux

Oscar Micheaux

Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films...

. A drama–romance of the race film

Race movie

The race movie or race film was a film genre which existed in the United States between about 1915 and 1950. It consisted of films produced for an all-black audience, featuring black casts....

 genre, it was Micheaux's first feature-length talkie, and the first African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 talkie. Adapted from Micheaux's first novel, The Conquest (1913), it has some autobiographical elements: like the film's central character Jean Baptiste (played by Stanley Morrell), Micheaux spent several years as a cattle rancher in an otherwise all-white area of South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

.

Synopsis

The story begins in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, where Edith Duval (Eunice Brooks) has become a power in the African American community, largely because she came into possession of a South Chicago mansion where she used to be a servant: the white family that owned the mansion abandoned it when blacks started moving into the neighborhood. She is in love with Baptiste, and at first it seems like they may be a match, but she rejects his idealism and he her cynicism: she wants to turn the mansion into a speakeasy

Speakeasy

A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...

 and nightclub.

Baptiste, instead, buys land in South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 and becomes a successful rancher. Five years into his time there, he falls in love with young Agnes Stewart (Nora Newsome), and she with him. He considers the situation hopeless, though, because she is white. The audience has already been cued in that he may be wrong about that: when she first heard about him, and it is mentioned to her that he is a "Negro

Negro

The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...

", she conjectures on how light or dark he may be, with words to the effect that "some Negroes are no darker than my mother — although with no sign of her ever having questioned her late mother's racial identity, or her own. Further, her father has demurred from another rancher's racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 remark, quoting Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

, "A Man's A Man for A' That

A Man's A Man for A' That

"Is There for Honest Poverty", commonly known as "A Man's a Man for A' That", is a 1795 Scots song by Robert Burns, famous for its expression of egalitarian ideas of society, which may be seen as anticipating the ideas of liberalism that arose in the 18th century, and those of socialism which arose...

".

Fleeing back to Chicago to escape his supposedly doomed relationship, the previously teetotaling Baptiste returns to Edith's club, her liquor, and her charms. They plan to marry, but her former lover, an Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

n named Jango (Carl Mahon) appears on the scene, sneaks into Edith's room and complains of how she has ruined him. He threatens suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

; she hands him a gun as a gesture of contempt. Instead of killing himself, however, he kills her. Baptiste is initially suspected of the murder, but is cleared.

Meanwhile, Agnes's father, discovering that Baptiste has fled, tells her about her own background. Earlier in the film, there has been reference to the one-drop rule

One-drop rule

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black...

: it is clear that in the time's (and Micheaux's) conception of race, this defines her as black. She takes a train to Chicago, where she and Baptiste are reunited; they marry and return to South Dakota.

Production

Filming took place in rented space at the Metropolitan Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey

Fort Lee, New Jersey

Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...

, and had to be scheduled around the work schedules of many cast members who were busy with commitments on Broadway. Principal photography wrapped in late February, 1931, and post production was completed in March. The film had a successful preview screening and premiered at the Lafayette Theater in May to sold-out crowds and very positive reviews.