Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Harry A. Pollard

Writers:

Harriet Beecher Stowe (novel)
Harvey F. Thew (continuity) ...

Release Date:

2 September 1928 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History

Tagline:

Carl Laemmle's $2,000,000.00 Romance of the Old South.

Plot:

Slavery tears apart a black family in the South before the start of the Civil War. |

Plot Keywords:

Slavery | Beaten To Death | Escape | Wedding | Ghost

Cast

Margarita Fischer	...	Eliza
James B. Lowe	...	Uncle Tom
Arthur Edmund Carewe	...	George Harris (as Arthur Edmund Carew)
George Siegmann	...	Simon Legree
Eulalie Jensen	...	Cassie
Mona Ray	...	Topsy
Virginia Grey	...	Eva St. Clare
Lassie Lou Ahern	...	Little Harry
Lucien Littlefield	...	Lawyer Marks
Adolph Milar	...	Mr. Tom Haley
J. Gordon Russell	...	Tom Loker (as Gordon Russell)
Gertrude Howard	...	Aunt Chloe - Uncle Tom's Wife
Jack Mower	...	Mr. Shelby
Vivien Oakland	...	Mrs. Shelby
John Roche	...	Augustine St. Clare

Runtime:

144 min | 112 min (Kino Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent | Mono

Certification:

USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Filming Locations:

Arkansas, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Debut of Virginia Grey.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in The Naughty Nineties (1945)

Soundtrack:

Old Black Joe

Surprisingly Good

Well I didn't think I'd like this one but it turned out to be pretty good and with a few terrific performances. Based on the 1852 novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, this silent film is a grand melodrama with all the trimmings and includes some of the most famous characters and scenes in American literature. Oddly there has never been an American talkie version of this classic.

Released by Universal with a "no-star" cast, the film captures most of the highlights from the novel, including Eliza's flight across the frozen river pursued by bloodhounds (very well done), the death of Little Eva, and the villainous Simon Legree. The film gets better as it goes along building to the death of the villain.

Notable perhaps as one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to cast a Black actor in a major role (James B. Lowe as Uncle Tom), most of the other parts are also played by Black actors (but I suspect a few were whites in black face).

Margarita Fisher (in her final film) stars as Eliza, 10-year-old Virginia Grey in her film debut plays Little Eva, George Siegmann is a terrific Simon, Lucien Littlefield is the lawyer, Aileen Manning is Aunt Ophelia, Mona Ray is Topsy, and Eulalie Jensen is wonderful as Cassy. I spotted Clarence Wilson among the auction bidders; Louise Beavers is an extra.

The film was not a great success and Universal lost money but it remains as an interesting film version of the biggest-selling book of the 19th century. I taped this from TCM's May series on Blacks in films......