We were surprised, though we shouldn’t have been, to learn that the first Black film utilizing sound, “a talkie,” was Oscar Micheaux’s “The Exile,” produced by Frank Schiffman, of Apollo Theater fame, and starring Eunice Brooks. Micheaux and Schiffman have been cited before in the profiles here but Ms. Brooks is practically a newcomer, and virtually well under the radar. Of course, given the deep dives we do here, her discovery was just a matter of time, and as Black history illuminates the calendar in the wake of Juneteenth, her appearance is all the more appropriate.
Finding vital statistics on Brooks was a search of utter futility. Even several biographies on Micheaux revealed not a mention of her and very little about “The Exile.” Her role in the film is equally bereft of background as she is described, early on in the film, as a white woman by another character. What little narrative insights shared arrived when Eunice stands before the mirror and examines her physicality, still puzzled about her race.
One citation about the film notes that Eunice appeared in Micheaux’s early films, and was considered one of his leading actresses. That, however, is not confirmed in a thorough survey of his early films and the casts. She was a light-skinned and fairly attractive woman, a veritable femme fatale, who has somehow come into possession of a mansion that she converts into a club or after-hours joint. The house, according to one review, “is also the house where she leads men into ruin but suffers for it in the end.”
The film opened in Harlem in 1931 at the Lafayette Theater to a standing-room-only crowd. Black attendees may have been up on the production and its premiere, but the white press gave it little attention. The Pittsburgh Courier praised the picture, citing it as a solid “portrayal of Negro life in a city that no one but a Negro, who has traveled and lived in cities, could tell.”
Those willing to invest a few dollars on Roku and access The Criterion Channel, but (and here’s the spoiler if you want to blink paste the next few lines) it’s hardly worth the time or money. Being his first talkie, Micheaux seems to be fascinated by the sound, leaving the editing of the film unattended to in too many places. The acting is stiff, and the plot is deplorable with a slap-dash tragic ending.
In her next film, shot a year later, Eunice is a Mrs. Austin in “The Girl from Chicago” and once again, according to several critics, delivers a wonderful performance. It might be wise just to forego a profile on her rather than allowing it to stand as a tease or bait to get a response from one of our readers.
We were hoping to derive more information on Eunice from Grant Harper Reid’s otherwise informative “Rhythm For Sale” about Leonard Harper, his grandfather who staged the dancers and the choreography in “The Exile.” While Reid offers a thoroughgoing account of his grandfather’s life and the film, Eunice is not mentioned. Even so, Reid offers several pages on the film, particularly some of the scenes that were lucky to make it past the ever-alert censors of the day. “What the censors found objectionable in ‘The Exile,’” Reid writes, “was the racial theme of the film.” Basically, the film is about an interracial romance during a period when such a coupling was taboo. “White audiences bristled when they watched what they thought to be one of their own female Caucasoid interrelating with an African American on the screen.”
Particularly incensed by the celluloid romance, Reid adds, were the white women members of the Pennsylvania Board of Censors. Reid provides an interesting follow-up to the promotional and financial developments of the film, though we leave that to titillate and coax readers to check out this very entertaining book.