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Oscar Micheaux's powerful detective story is a still-relevant indictment of institutional racism in its depiction of a Black man wrongly accused of murder.
In Murder in Harlem, the lifeless body of a white woman is discovered by a Black night watchman at a chemical factory. The police quickly pin the crime on him in what appears to be an open-and-shut case. Or so it appears until the watchman’s sister asks a former beau, who is now a lawyer, to dig into matter.
Based on a notorious 1913 real-life case that preoccupied the filmmaker, Murder in Harlem is Micheaux's remake of his own 1921 film The Gunsaulus Mystery, now considered to be lost. (96 mins., 4K DCP)
As Wil Haygood notes in his book Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World (2021), Micheaux "had come into Black filmmaking when it hardly existed, creating much of its origins and giving it ballast and a heartbeat. What D. W. Griffith had drilled into the minds of white Americans—that Blacks were untrustworthy and devoid of humanity—Oscar Micheaux tried to undo."
Murder in Harlem | Image courtesy of The Film Foundation
Restored by the George Eastman Museum and Cineteca di Bologna in association with The Film Foundation, Quoiat Films, and Sky from a 35mm nitrate print in the SMU/Tyler Film Collection, SMU Libraries, deposited at the George Eastman Museum. Restoration performed at George Eastman Museum Film Preservation Services and L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.
FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY Cardinal Health Kaufman Development
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Rohauer Collection Foundation
WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY The Wexner Family Greater Columbus Arts Council The Columbus Foundation Ohio Arts Council American Electric Power Foundation L Brands Foundation Adam Flatto Mary and C. Robert Kidder Bill and Sheila Lambert Institute of Museum and Library Services Nationwide Foundation Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease Arlene and Michael Weiss
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Mike and Paige Crane Pete Scantland Axium Packaging Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams President Kristina M. Johnson and Mrs. Veronica Meinhard Nancy Kramer Huntington Lisa Barton Johanna DeStefano Russell and Joyce Gertmenian Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel Ron and Ann Pizzuti Joyce and Chuck Shenk Bruce and Joy Soll Clark and Sandra Swanson Jones Day
Past Film/Video
Murder in Harlem
