WAY DOWN SOUTH is for all it's low-budget "B"-ness, a remarkable and amazing film, a story with slavery at the fore front, written by two black screenwriters in a film apparently mainly meant for white audiences in 1939. That alone makes it a historic film but it is worth viewing for many additional reasons.
Child star Bobby Breen stars as the only child of a widowed plantation owner (Ralph Morgan) in the Old South. Morgan may be the "Master" of many slaves but he is kindly and treats them kindly, providing them nice homes on the plantation and allowing them to marry whom they choose. When he is killed in an accident, his evil executor comes in and opens a new era of terror for the slaves, taking their homes and beating with a whip one slave for the slightest "disobedience". Bobby Breen is aghast at the whipping and tells him his father never beat any of the slaves which the executor dismisses. When the devoted house servant, Uncle Caton (Clarence Muse) "dares" to speak up and confirm this, the executor is outraged and demands Muse be sent to auction block the next day. Bobby overhears this and takes Muse in his buggy off to New Orleans so he can escape and take a riverboat to the North. Meanwhile, the executor has decided to sell off all the slaves and other properties of Morgan so that he and his mistress Steffi Duna can take the funds and move to France. Meanwhile in New Orleans, Bobby turns to kindly hotel owner Alan Mowbray for help in somehow stopping the executor from his wicked plans.
Screenwriters Clarence Muse and Langston Hughes have a delicate tightrope to walk and they generally do it admirably if not always successfully. The movie may have a black stereotype or two but it is notably sympathetic to the slaves and their terror of mistreatment and being torn apart is quite real and most unusual for a film from the period. This dramatic film does have a number of musical numbers, most of them showcasing the black cast to a degree unparalleled in "white" films of the period. This was the first time I ever saw Bobby Breen, like many child stars he gets raked over the coals by some latter-day film historians but he is very acceptable in the lead and not at all brash, he also boasts a fine soprano voice. Clarence Muse is both co-screenwriter and co-star here and while he does have a "spooked" moment and at one point disguises himself in drag (face and hands covered as well to play a "white lady"), the role is a fairly dignified one. One does regret lovely Sally Blane has a role that is little more than a bit here, one of her last films. Langston and Muse may not have written a radical film but it is a trailblazing one for the era with sympathy for blacks enslaved and a corrupt "master" apparently punished in the end.
Child star Bobby Breen stars as the only child of a widowed plantation owner (Ralph Morgan) in the Old South. Morgan may be the "Master" of many slaves but he is kindly and treats them kindly, providing them nice homes on the plantation and allowing them to marry whom they choose. When he is killed in an accident, his evil executor comes in and opens a new era of terror for the slaves, taking their homes and beating with a whip one slave for the slightest "disobedience". Bobby Breen is aghast at the whipping and tells him his father never beat any of the slaves which the executor dismisses. When the devoted house servant, Uncle Caton (Clarence Muse) "dares" to speak up and confirm this, the executor is outraged and demands Muse be sent to auction block the next day. Bobby overhears this and takes Muse in his buggy off to New Orleans so he can escape and take a riverboat to the North. Meanwhile, the executor has decided to sell off all the slaves and other properties of Morgan so that he and his mistress Steffi Duna can take the funds and move to France. Meanwhile in New Orleans, Bobby turns to kindly hotel owner Alan Mowbray for help in somehow stopping the executor from his wicked plans.
Screenwriters Clarence Muse and Langston Hughes have a delicate tightrope to walk and they generally do it admirably if not always successfully. The movie may have a black stereotype or two but it is notably sympathetic to the slaves and their terror of mistreatment and being torn apart is quite real and most unusual for a film from the period. This dramatic film does have a number of musical numbers, most of them showcasing the black cast to a degree unparalleled in "white" films of the period. This was the first time I ever saw Bobby Breen, like many child stars he gets raked over the coals by some latter-day film historians but he is very acceptable in the lead and not at all brash, he also boasts a fine soprano voice. Clarence Muse is both co-screenwriter and co-star here and while he does have a "spooked" moment and at one point disguises himself in drag (face and hands covered as well to play a "white lady"), the role is a fairly dignified one. One does regret lovely Sally Blane has a role that is little more than a bit here, one of her last films. Langston and Muse may not have written a radical film but it is a trailblazing one for the era with sympathy for blacks enslaved and a corrupt "master" apparently punished in the end.
