The first major movie to have an African-American as a lead since King Vidor's 1929 "Hallelujah" was September 1933's "The Emperor Jones," starring Paul Robeson. Critics claim this role was Robeson's greatest performance on the screen. Film reviewer Lisa Bowman wrote Robeson "gives a powerful and empathetic performance." The United Artist movie was based on Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play of the same name. O'Neill examined the United States' 1915 occupation of Haiti by the U. S. Marines, spurred on by Jean Vilbrun Sam, leader of rebel troops, who usurped the sitting Haitian president and ruled for a brief five months before being assassinated. O'Neill reconstituted the historic facts in his play to make an African-American porter the one who ruled a Caribbean Island before meeting his own fate.
Unlike the play, the Dudley Murphy-directed film recreated the backstory of Brutus Jones, from the opening of a Baptist church's congregation praying for its member to make good as a porter. The Dubose Heyward screenplay describes Jones as an opportunist who's determined to get ahead, lessons he learned from his dealings with white folk, shown in several vignettes, before his bold plan to take over an island's population. Heyward, whose novel 'Porgy' was made into a 1927 play consisting of an entire black cast, reworked the O'Neill play to demonstrate how a porter was capable of ruling over a large group of islanders.
O'Neill sold his play's film rights to two young wealthy backers for $30,000, rights that included the writer's insistence Robeson play the lead. Robeson accepted the offer, with the stipulation that none of "The Emperor Jones'" scenes be filmed south of the Mason Dixon Line, especially the swamp sequences. Instead, most of the filming was inside the former Paramount studios in Astoria, Queens, New York.
Born in Princeton, New Jersey, to a former slave, Robeson excelled in high school sports and academia, becoming the first black to be admitted to Rutgers College, and was valedictorian in his senior year. His football skills attracted the NFL while he attended Yale University, where he played the sport for a season before getting his law degree at Columbia Law School. Robeson turned to acting and was immediately hired for a number of plays, among them as 'Joe' in 1927's "Showboat," and in Shakespeare's 'Othello,' the first African-American to play the Bard's character. Robeson left film work in the early 1940s disappointed at the roles offered to him, even though England dangled more prominent opportunities than in Hollywood. He leaves a legacy of forceful acting in "The Emperor Jones." Film reviewer Danny Reid noted, "The film is a showcase for Robeson's incredible spark and sexual magnetism, as well as for representing the ways he pushed back against the racist structures of America nearly a century ago. It's an imperfect work but exciting all the same."
