Body and Soul

Micheaux Film Company, 1925. Paul Robeson's first film: an escaped convict in a preacher's collar, and the decent inventor brother the girl would rather have. New York's board rejected the nine-reel cut as sacrilegious, then made Micheaux take it down to five. George Eastman House holds a nitrate that still looks closer to the first version. It is the only picture Robeson made with a Black director.