Hallelujah (1929)
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Hallelujah Movie Review
Hallelujah is a 1929 musical film directed by King Vidor and starring Daniel L. Haynes and Nina Mae McKinney. It’s a problematic, but solid and mostly admirable effort.
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“Mammy, I can’t buy you nothin’.
I got to buy you somethin’.
Why they ain’t no nothin’ to buy“
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It follows black sharecroppers, their intrigues, problems and relationships. Yes, this is one of the first Hollywood movies ever to deal so prominently with black people. In fact, the entire cast is black and not a single white person is in sight. That was groundbreaking and weird to witness in such an early movie, and thus I found it truly admirable.
Yes, I get a bit the critique today that King Vidor was too by black people and the tone at times of the film seemed a bit condescending, but for the most part that criticism is very off-putting as you really need to watch this film in context to appreciate it more.
Literally most movies of this period never dealt at any capacity with black actors, and if they did, the results were horribly racist or just featured as minor mammy roles. But here, they were mostly portrayed in a dignified fashion, and I found a glimpse into their culture truly fascinating.
Again, some may criticize the movie today for dealing with stereotypes, but then again, I personally disagree. By portraying black people as sharecroppers, as obsessed with religion, as more common and uneducated, the movie wasn’t racist, but serving as a documentary because back then most black people were uneducated and poor as they had no real opportunities for success. So I view this as an interesting, documentarian time capsule that should be appreciated more what it is.
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However, as a movie itself, Hallelujah is just solid, and rarely great. I am of course talking about its very middling overall plot. It includes a lot of passion, crime, twists and turns, but for the most part it was like a soap opera to me, and many of its plot points I found simply too typical to be enjoyed more. The movie is awfully melodramatic, and the religious sequences, though realistic, are overly abundant and they make the movie less engaging unfortunately.
The actors are all great, and had they been white, they would have gotten more gigs after this movie, but unfortunately the racism prevailed in the end. Daniel L. Haynes is so good and charismatic as Zeke, the most important character of the film. But Nina Mae McKinney is the real standout, at least for me. Her vamp character Chick is so memorable, and seeing a beautiful black woman portray a sexual black character was unprecedented for its time, and thus all the more memorable. All of her scenes are very entertaining.
Hallelujah is quite weakly scripted for sure, but it has some great qualities to it in other areas. I am of course talking about the technicalities. This movie is so beautifully shot that it was a joy seeing some of its imagery. It looks so polished from beginning to end, and it also features grounded in reality, strong dialogue.
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The score is also fantastic, and again very documentarian in approach. I found it very successful as a musical thanks in large part to the incredible quality of its sound which was simply amazingly crisp for usually terrible-sounding 1929. And the direction from King Vidor is so professional and stellar that he entirely deserved his Oscar nomination for his great work here.
Hallelujah is a highly important movie in Hollywood’s history for dealing with an all-black perspective and cast. Certainly it may be viewed as stereotypical today, but it was groundbreaking back then and thus it needs to be appreciated more. As for the movie itself, it features an overly melodramatic, even soapy storyline, but the score is terrific, the sound is incredibly polished for its time and King Vidor’s stellar direction was deservedly Oscar-nominated.
