In the 1920s American's greatest dramatist arrived on Broadway in the person of Eugene O'Neill. The son of a well remembered Shakespearean and Romantic actor (the nightmare relationship of Eugene, his father James, his mother, and his older brother is the subject of his last play A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT), O'Neill was not afraid to tackle subjects that were not usually discussed in American drama: incest in DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS for instance. He experimented with different styles of acting, copying the Greek trilogy of Aschylus in MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, and using masked actors in THE GREAT GOD BROWN. But he also created the first modern drama of importance with a central figure who was an African American. This was THE EMPEROR JONES (1925).
Brutus Jones is a tremendous step forward in American dramaturgy because he is the central figure. Than said O'Neill's play still maintains stereotyping. Brutus is a porter on a train, who frequently plays craps, and who has an argument with his friend Jeff and kills him in a fight with razors. He flees to a foreign island, and he soon discovers that he has leadership qualities there that enable him to set up a monarchy there with himself as Emperor. He even sets up a court with uniformed courtiers. But the moment he gives orders to destroy a village for not showing proper deference to him, his reign begins to fall apart. And soon from being Emperor he becomes a hunted animal.
The stereotyping continues, with Brutus slowly losing his bearings and balance due to the incessant drums beating in the forest surrounding him. He hallucinates and sees the ghost of Jeff. He has always spread the word of his invincibility by saying only silver bullets could kill him. So his pursuers melt silver down to make the bullets they use to hunt him down and kill him.
As was pointed out on another discussion of the film on this thread, O'Neill based the fall of Jones on that of Haitian Emperor Henri I (Henri Christophe), except that he committed suicide with a silver bullet when he was about to be captured and executed.
The play was successful, and would be one of the first triumphs in Paul Robeson's career. He did not originate the role (as he did not originate the role of Joe in the stage production of SHOWBOAT). But he became identified with the role - to the point that he made this independent, somewhat defective production of the film in 1933. Except for Dudley Digges, as the one white man in Jones' kingdom (and Jones' occasional intimate), the cast is pretty forgettable. But it is watching Robeson in his one major lead role that holds our attention. He is a commanding figure in the film and fits the role of a man who loses his throne and power and sanity and life in one evil night. Still, one really wishes that the film's production values could have been better - some of the special effects (the appearance of the ghost of Jeff for example) are quite weak.
With it's defects it is a measure of watching Robeson at his best that I'd rate it a "7" out of "10".
