Hallelujah

Zeke sells the family cotton and loses the money to Chick and her partner's dice, his brother dies in the fight that follows, he turns preacher, and Chick comes back for him. A river baptism, a revival that tips into frenzy, a killing in the swamp. King Vidor gave up his salary to get MGM to make a film with an all-Black cast, shot it silent in Tennessee and Arkansas, and built the sound in the cutting room. The picture holds the plantation clichés of its studio and the observed life of its locations at the same time and does not resolve them. Nina Mae McKinney, as Chick, is the reason to watch. 1929.