Great Film overall

Awesome Movie

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

In his provocative 1980 article in 'Film Comment', 'Bad Films', James Hoberman concentrated almost exclusively on Oscar Micheaux's thirties sound films in painting Micheaux as a sort of black Edward D.Wood Jr. When Hoberman wrote that "the longer Micheaux made films, the badder they got," the 1993 Library of Congress restoration of 'Within Our Gates' was still several years away, but - possibly because Micheaux was free of the later encumbrances of dialogue and sound film technology - manages accurately to bear out his statement, since it stands up extremely well.The fact that nearly a hundred years ago this film was made at all is remarkable enough; that it's actually survived (in Spain, of all places) is miraculous, particularly as Micheaux's final film, the three hour-long 'The Betrayal' (1948) - made over a quarter of a century later - is ironically lost. In addition to its indictment of institutionalised racism in the United States - where in the South any available negro could be lynched just for the hell of it - 'Within Our Gates' is also remarkable for criticising bible-thumping snake oil salesmen like the black preacher Old Ned, who exhorts his congregation not to bother themselves with the injustices of this world as their reward will come in the next.Micheaux not surprisingly gives short shrift to the American South, where the poor white trash are depicted as being treated as contemptuously by the land-owning classes as their black brethren (the identical appearance and beards worn by a trio of yokels hinting at in-breeding), and titles are written in dialect to lampoon the Southern drawl, rather than just black speech as tended to be the custom in silent films. The cross-cutting between a lynching and a rape attempt by a white man near the film's conclusion serves as a well-aimed raspberry at the equivalent sequence in D.W.Griffith's 'Birth of a Nation'; although the abrupt uplifting speech about America by the handsome Dr. Vivian at the film's very end feels extremely tacked on. But 'Within Our Gates' has already hit home with enough ugly home truths by then.American women, incredibly, still didn't have the vote when 'Within Our Gates' was made; and Micheaux equates women's suffrage with black civil rights, in the process marshalling a cast of formidable female characters, both black & white. In one of several elaborate narrative strands that 'Within Our Gates' packs into less than eighty minutes, black heroine Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer) is taken under the wing of wealthy white philanthropist Elena Warwick, whose friend Geraldine Stratton is a rich Southerner and "a bitter enemy of woman's suffrage, because it appalls her to think that Negro women might vote."

I first found this silent film listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, then available through the BFI (British Film Industry), I was always going to watch it, especially with the facts I read about it. Basically young African-American woman Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer) is visiting her cousin Alma Prichard (Flo Clements) in the north, where there is less racial prejudice compared to the deep south and her home town of Piney Woods. Sylvia is awaiting the return of her fiancé, Conrad Drebert (James D. Ruffin), so that they can marry, Alma also loves Conrad, and would like Sylvia to marry her brother-in-law, gambler and criminal Larry (Jack Chenault). Alma creates a compromising situation for when Conrad returns, he subsequently leaves for Brazil, abandoning Sylvia, while Larr murders a man during a poker game, a disheartened Sylvia returns to Piney Woods. Sylvia meets minister Reverand Jacobs, who runs the overcrowded Piney Woods School, a rural school for black children, he is struggling to cope with the small amount the state offer to give black children an education and the school faces closure, so Sylvia volunteers to try and raise $5,000. Sylvia has little success returning to the north, including her purse being stolen, but then she meets Dr. V. Vivian (Charles D. Lucas), who helps her recover her purse. Sylvia saves the life of a child playing in the street, almost being hit by a car herself, the car owner is wealthy philanthropist Mrs. Elena Warwick, who is sympathetic to her quest and offers to donate the $5,000 she needs. Her bigoted Southern friend Mrs. Geraldine Stratton (Bernice Ladd) tries to discourage her, but Mrs. Warwick increases the donation to $50,000, with her job done Sylvia makes her way back to Piney Woods. Dr. Vivian has fallen in love with Sylvia, he goes to Alma to try and find her, and through flashbacks, she tells him all about her shocking past. Sylvia was adopted and raised by a poor black family, her adoptive father Philip Gridlestone (Ralph Johnson) was accused of the murder of an unpopular but wealthy white man, because of this the family was lynched, Sylvia escaped and was almost raped, Gridlestone's brother discovered Sylvia was the mixed-race daughter of Philip. After hearing about her life, Dr. Vivian meets with Sylvia, he encourages her to be proud of the contributions African Americans have made to her country, he professes his love for her, and the film ends with them getting married. Also starring William Smith as Detective Philip Gentry, William Stark as Jasper Landry, Mattie Edwards as Jasper's Wife, E.G. Tatum as Efram - Gridlestone's Servant, Grant Edwards as Emil Landry and Grant Gorman as Armand Gridlestone. This film was made five years after the release of The Birth of a Nation, this film is seen as a response to it, it is one of the earliest surviving films made by an African American filmmaker, it is certainly a landmark and controversial black-and- white film, with its depiction of racial violence and segregation, and historically important, a shocking but most interesting silent drama. Good!

Oscar Micheaux is one of my motion picture heroes.With courage and determination, he set out to make movies for and about black people when it wasn't otherwise much done.He was a pioneer in independent film-making, raising money in the most unusual places and unusual ways.He deserves a lot of praise ... but, alas, his results were too often disappointing."Within Our Gates" has a lot of potential, but most of it is unmet.The acting is pretty good, but the camera work and editing are lacking; and the script misses badly.The story is a good one, and the school that is at the heart of a major subplot has a real-life counterpart: Professor Laurance Jones created a school for the black people of the piney woods near Jackson, Mississippi, in the very earliest years of the 20th century.Professor Jones' story is incredibly inspiring and I urge everyone who cares about spirit and courage to take a look (http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/vol/21991.shtml is one source).Micheaux and Jones have somewhat parallel lives, though Jones ultimately achieved recognition in his lifetime.Micheaux should have, and I am grateful beyond words that at least his films are finally being seen by a wider audience.They are flawed, yes, but they present two stories we all need to know about: The actual topic of the movie, and that of Micheaux himself.The ending of this movie is, frankly, beyond my comprehension. It seems to come out of thin air, and I fear it must have been hastily tacked on in order to placate someone. Too bad, but still the movie is historically valuable.This is added June 10, 2015: There is a print available at YouTube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1E0NrcnwAEI haven't watched more than a few seconds, but so far it's a terrible print.

I disagree with the first comment. I did not find this movie silly at all. I believe it was up to par with any other silent movie of this same period, and the acting was not atrocious. I think it was a very provocative movie for its time and, whether it was purposefully or not, a great response to DW Griffith's "Birth of a Nation." That movie showed a mulatto man trying to force himself on a White woman, along with numerous other stereotypes of Black people in that movie. "Within Our Gates" showed the true side of what really happened, especially with the lynching, and the main character and her *real* father. I feel privileged to have seen a Black silent film, especially one of such high caliber.