User Reviews

Rev. S.S. Jones Home Movies (1924-1926)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Of all the films on Kino's Pioneers of African-American Cinema, this here might be the one that most people will be scratching their head on. After reading the booklet, S.S. Jones was a black preacher in rural Oklahoma who traveled around with a camera capturing black life at that time. He made a series of films, which were edited into this sixteen-minute documentary of the footage. If you're a fan of older movies that were simply made to show what was going on at the time then this here is a must see as it shows us black life that Hollywood certainly wasn't showing us. We see children playing, going to see and being happy. We see funerals, church sessions and people being Batised. Basically we just see what these black people were doing in their own spaces and jobs and it's quite fascinating to watch.

"Rev. S.S. Jones Home Movies" is a truly unusual film in that it was never intended as a cinematic release but simply are some home movies made by the Reverend long ago in Oklahoma. It shows various black communities in the state and is an invaluable historical document. What might be surprising to many is that the footage is contrary to the prevailing view that black Americans were all poor during this era, as the footage shows many upper and middle class black people in their lovely clothes and homes. A few of the scenes are of poorer families but most show people who are long gone but also proud and beautiful. Well worth seeing and a short I wish I'd shown to my students when I was teaching American history, though I didn't know of its existence until recently. Fascinating and a nice portrait of life in the mid-1920s.

Impossible to rate due to the type of film it is, though I must say that the film quality is excellent as it's not in extensive need of restoration...a rarity for this type of home movie.