Uncle Tom's Cabin

source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927) *** (out of 4) Universal dropped $2 million on this adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, which had been one of the best selling books other than the Bible. The film tells the story of slaves Eliza (Margarita Fischer) and George (Arthur Edmund Carewe) who, after being married, get sold off and spend the rest of the film trying to locate their kid. Also sold off and taken away from his family is Uncle Tom (James B. Lowe) whose prayers don't sit too well with his new master. One has to consider when this film was made and what people then actually thought about black people. This movie has its heart in the right place but I'm sure many would watch this film and find it nearly as racist as something like THE BIRTH OF A NATION. With this film, the blacks are shown to be human but we get the same stupid stereotypes that had hampered countless films before this one. We get blacks standing around with their eyes bugged out with large smiles on their face. We get the "so happy to be a slave" routine, which includes fun dancing and singing. It's always rather strange to see the slaves being shown as happy as their rich owners. The roles of Eliza and George were light-skinned characters in the book and they're played by white people here. That's somewhat to be expected as most black characters were played by whites in blackface but thankfully the director didn't do that here with Uncle Tom and many of the supporting characters. This film was groundbreaking in the use of black actors and on a historic level, this keeps the movie entertaining throughout. Lowe also gives the best performance in the film and delivers a character who will certainly touch the viewer in his strength. The actor does the role justice, which is all you can ask for. Virginia Grey made her film debut here and is quite charming. The rest of the cast members act as if they're doing a stage play but they're fairly good. The film does have a few interesting technical achievements with two coming during a death scene where we get a beautiful camera shot and then a nice special effect of a spirit going to Heaven. The ending is also quite powerful as Uncle Tom's master goes crazy and begins abusing various people.

This is based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic anti-slavery novel. In 1856 Eliza and George (both slaves from different plantations) get married. However George's owner won't let Eliza's owner buy him so they can't be together. Still they manage to have a son named Harry. However Tom (another slave) and and Harry are going to be sold to someone else. Eliza takes her son and runs off but can she get away? Fast-moving adaptation. It was obviously a big budget film (Universal spent $2 million on it--a huge amount in those days) and it shows. The film is very anti-slavery but strangely has some of the worst black stereotypes in place. For example--all the black children devour a watermelon in seconds and other blacks are portrayed as stupid or dumb for "comic" relief. Also there are white actors in (obvious) black face and the two leads (Eliza and George) are white also. Still, back in those days, this was common practice. Even stranger Harry (as a little kid) is obviously being played by a little girl but then is played by a little boy when the story jumps to years later! The change is obvious and distracting. Still, this is a great movie. Some of the character names (Uncle Tom, Little Eva, Simon Legree, Sambo) have become part of our language in good and bad ways. Also this is the movie that contains the infamous sequence of Eliza being chased over ice floes with hounds nipping at her heels! The movie also is well-acted (especially by Margarita Fischer as Eliza) and very moving at times (even though it does overdo it a bit with little Eva). There's also enough characters and situations for three different movies but they're never confusing and are always easy to keep track of. It's beautifully directed also and the most recent versions have a very good music score added and some sound effects. Complaints aside this is a very good film--probably one of the best silent film ever. Recommended.

If there is anyone who doesn't know where the sobriquet "Uncle Tom", to describe a complaisant Negro, came from, this is the place. The book that some say started the U. S. Civil War gets fairly good silent era treatment. Filmed just as the "dawn of sound" was beginning, there are sound effects and a brief semi-synchronised segment. The emphasis in the film is more on "Eliza", a very light complexioned slave (probably an octoroon), than on "Uncle Tom", who is almost a background lay figure. There is justification for this, for "Eliza", though virtually helpless as a female slave, is much more the rebel than "Uncle Tom". In the novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe gave him much more "presence". Some characters are portrayed realistically, but the more villainous they are, the more they are limned as caricatures. For example, take "Simon Legree" and especially "lawyer Marks". The white actors seem inclined to employ the more irritating silent era acting mannerisms, much more than the black actors. But the two slaves of "Simon Legree" who specialise in flogging, behave more as clowns than actors. They are the exception, though. Take note of very young Virginia Grey as doomed "Little Eva", and the scene of "Eliza" crossing the ice. These are high points, and the river scene is very impressively filmed. Shades of Lillian Gish on the ice floes! I am not going to take up more space about the plot elements for such a well known story. My suggestion is seek out the novel and read it. So how are we to regard this film and the source novel. Ms. Stowe certainly intended it as an anti-slavery tract, and it was very effective following publication circa 1856. This film tones the anti-slavery sentiment down quite a bit, but only someone obsessed with "political correctness" could call it racist in a malicious sense.

I hate historical films, but "Uncle Tom's Cabin" wasn't bad. I didn't find it to be boring like other films. This story actually MIGHT have happened somewhere back in the old days, thus adding to a high level of verisimilitude. Slave escapes were very common back in the old days, as far as I know. The scene where Harry and Eliza escape from the plantation during the Winter really made me feel for the "Struggle", man. Now it is a silent film. For the record, I'm not the biggest fan. But it was 1927. What else could they do? They pulled it off wonderfully. The lighting was a nice touch too. The light really created a sort of aura around the actors while the background remained in a stellar darkness. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anybody really. As stated before, it isn't bad. It's just not my cup of tea.

In these days Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel of Uncle Tom's Cabin is known more by historians as a contributing cause of the Civil War than as an actual literary work. I would happily include myself in that number. The only exposure I had to the story at all was in watching The King And I where Tuptim puts on the play for the king recognizing the story as an indictment of slavery. So sadly did the king, but that's another story. What you're seeing in this 1927 version is not Harriet Beecher Stowe's story, it couldn't be because there are references in the film to the Dred Scott decision, the firing on Fort Sumter and the Emancipation Proclamation all in the future because her story was published in 1852. What slaves, free blacks, and sympathetic northerners like the Quaker family you see who rescue Eliza and her baby are afraid of the new strict fugitive slave law. The law was part of the Compromise of 1850 which almost mandated help for slave catchers who found runaway slaves in the north. It was a stench in the nostrils of folks like the Quakers who were prominent in the anti-slavery movement. We're not seeing Stowe's story, but we are seeing her vision of the cruelty of slavery as an institution. Even the idea that black people were to be thought of as equal was radical in too many eyes back in the day. Stowe used a lot of what would later be labeled stereotypes, most importantly the phrase 'Uncle Tom'. That which denotes a person willing to accept inequality in all its forms. The criticism has certain validity, but I think for the wrong reasons. As seen her old Uncle Tom is the elder head of the plantation blacks on a Kentucky estate who the master even trusts to go to free state Ohio on business for him. No one can believe that Uncle Tom actually returns, the criticism is that his pride is so broken he accepts what the slave owners give him. Tom returns, not because he accepts, but because in that cabin are his wife and children, even in slavery he's a family man. This is the most horrible thing of all for Stowe, the human beings are property. Even the kindly masters shown here like the Shelbys, Tom's owners accumulate debts and have to sell Tom and break up that family. Families being destroyed is the cardinal sin for Stowe. Except for young Virginia Grey playing little Eliza the innocent who hasn't learned to regard certain people as beneath treating as human, most people today won't know the cast members. Some might know Lucien Littlefield who has a small role as a bottom feeding slave dealer. This was not a profession that attracted the best in society. James B. Lowe as Uncle Tom you will not forget, he invests great dignity in the original Uncle Tom role of them all.

Most silent films have overacting, story qualities we'd currently consider to be politically incorrect, and or slow story. This is one of those movies that defies most silent film clichés. While there are a couple of silent film flaws like the man who's job it is to catch runaway slaves acts like comic relief and you could consider some of the slave dialogue to portray them as being stupid and illiterate, but there is so much in it that makes it feel real. Slaves hardly had any education anyway because their owners didn't care if they could use good English so it felt realistic in a couple of places. This is the first movie or one of the first to cast black people as slaves and they are well cast for the most part especially considering that these actors didn't have resumes to show if they had the goods to act in a feature film. James B. Lowe's performance as Uncle Tom creates a large amount of charisma because it is made clear that he is a nice man who loves anyone who shows him kindness. The comparison scenes showing how white slave owners have fun and how slaves have fun brought a lot of thought into how the slaves were still in a bad situation, but were happy when they had each other. The romance which is a main focus of the movie only comes into play a lot of the time, but soon shifts to another part of the plot making the movie more entertaining and a little more complex. This movie shows the love and cruelty of humanity extremely well, not even for the time which makes this a must see for any silent movie fan. The movie even adds addition sound effects and voice overs to enrich the experience, a quality that was not often seen because it could only be done when the silent era came to a close. It is also a great way to know the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin if you don't like reading books. It shows how far movies have come since then, but I highly recommend it because of it's impressive story telling.

This is movie is big! At a huge cost, which I cannot be definite Mr. Carl Laemmle, he of Universal Pictures fame brought us this movie. First of all, Universal released two kind of movies in those early days of movies, regularly pictures which played under the Universal logo and the big prestige pictures which went out under the Carl Laemmle presents or "gold" pictures as they were called. This was the one selected for the year 1927 and it was a hit, one of the top 20 of its year. Now unto the movie. I have never read the book but I know it is a very flimsy adaptation because the movie begins in 1856 when the book was published in 1852. It always involves the civil war and emancipation. The Civil War did not start till 1861. Already we know, they are taking detours and liberties from this book, the best selling novel of the 19th Century. This is a big movie after all, therefore the light-skinned blacks and leads of the movie are plain whites with a dash of ebony and potash that make them look like white-skinned whites. This is too distracting. Marion Davies in a movie in 1934 movie with Gary Cooper which I cannot remember the name for about three scenes pretends to be a black servant girl and the make-up people were very convincing in pulling this off. The story is melodrama. I'm sure the book is melodrama too but this is too excessive. No stops have not been pulled or upturned to make sure the audience is sufficiently entertained. The plot deals with two slaves who are kindly treated by their masters and are raised like one of the family. It isn't mentioned but it is implied that they were fathered by their plantation owners and thus the very light skin. They marry while the cotton barnyard of onyx faces dance and Jim crow about in splendid surprise while acknowledging that these two in house slaves are "almost" white. If delivered as sound and not as a title card, this line would surely get laughs. It's a pure groaner. Not too late, bad man plantation owner appears and is agree that old Harry - that is the male slave - dares to marry Eliza - the female slave - without his permission. He angrily and haughtily drags him away. Events happen which lead to both slaves in desperation not to be separated to get on the run. It might seem that I hate this movie. I didn't. It is too wheel directed to be hated, with big sets, action sequences involving an ice floe and waterfall and lifting of scenes from movies including the famous farewell scene from the Big Parade. Characters like Topsy and Eva the little white girl and black slave girl are never fully integrated in to the whole and I understand that some of Eva's scenes have been cleaned up for modern eyes. The version I saw did not have Eva referring to herself as a nigga etc. "Uncle Tom" is a term used by blacks to refer to a system following, obedient and benevolent black man who accepts or is seen as subservient to white interests. It comes from the characterization of the character in the book. You cannot tell this from watching the movie. A title card says he loves his masters but that's about it. He doesn't really act excessively docile meaning scenes have been omitted that were in the book that clearly spelled this out. The last thirty minutes is well-directed hokum. Even the ending is but who takes risks on such a big movie. Not intellectual or substantially good because it never fully takes you into the lives of the slaves beyond excessive stereotypes on both landowners and servitude aspects. It's crude but entertaining.

Just saw this movie on Turner Classic Movies last night. One of the BEST films I've ever seen! I laughed. I cried. I got angry. And I LOVED the ending. I loved the way the film was done, especially with the angel scene and the ghost. The locations were amazing and the actors and actresses were outstanding. I had no idea that slavery included the sale of white people as well. Little Eva's love for the slaves was so beautiful. She really moved me and when she died, I cried right along with Topsy. I cried when Tom was separated from his family and when the lead actress discovered her mother. I loved it when the army came to free all of the slaves and could feel the celebration coming through my television set. I truly wish that anyone and everyone who reads my words will have the opportunity to see this movie. I truly do think it's one of the best movies ever. A MUST see movie! Excellent!

Very hard to take, but, historically important and interesting. There are some wonderful scenes- Eliza and little Harry's escape from the plantation in the wintry night, their flight across the ice covered river, the surreal death of little Eva, the turning of the tables (first by Eliza and later by Cassie) that have enslaved women using whips to beat off white men! Margarita Fischer is quite good as Eliza. She has an interesting appearance that is quite right for this kind of melodrama. Virginia Grey as the impossibly saintly Little Eva is weirdly intense- sort of like those unsettling early performance by Jodie Foster. It works to make this character strange enough to be believable. Most of the actors playing Black slaves (some of them played by unnaturally painted white actors) have a more difficult time of it- James B. Lowe does his best and does bring some quiet dignity to the central role of Uncle Tom- but the script and conception defeat him at times. Arthur Edmund Carewe (an actor whom IMDb fascinatingly claims is of Native American descent- Chickasaw- and yet is said to have been born in Tebiziond Turkey?) is quite good as George Harris the light skinned husband of Eliza and father of Harry- although he barely appears in the film since much of George's story has been edited out. The most painfully offensive scenes belong to Mona Ray who plays the ridiculous caricature of the happy little mischievous slave Topsy. Interestingly the DVD has deleted scenes that push Topsy further towards a psychological study in self hatred- check them out of you rent this one- I am not sure if they were deleted in 1927 or at a later re-release date (Topsy uses the N word to refer to herself in the deleted scenes and in one fascinating scene ritualistically powders herself white in an attempt to become "good" like Ms. Eva. Of course, the film is a ridiculous and utterly offensive view of the history of slavery- that shamelessly panders to racist notions of European superiority. In this it does not depart from novel as much as make the narrative mo