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Hallelujah

HALLELUJAH

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CREDITS

1929, 106 minutes, B&W.
Producer, King Vidor; Director, King Vidor; Story, King Vidor; Scenario, Wanda Tuchock; Treatment, Richard Schayer; Dialogue; Ransom Rideout; Cinematography; Gordon Avil; Music Director; Eva Jessye.

CAST

Zeke, Daniel Haynes; Chick, Nina Mae McKinney; Hot Shot, William Fountaine; Mammy, Fannie Belle De Knight; Parson, Harry Gray; Missy Rose, Victoria Spivey; Spunk, Everett McGarrity.

SONGS

Waitin' At the End of the Road and Swanee Shuffle by Irving Berlin; Swanee River; Oh, Cotton! Hey, Cotton!; E.I.O.; Mammy's Lullaby; Roll de Cotton; Dinah; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Great Day the Righteous Marching; Gimme Dat Ole Time Religion; Carry Me to the Water; I Belong to Dat Band; Zeke's Gone; St. Louis Blues; Goin' Home.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"A black cotton worker accidentally kills a man and decides to become a preacher."
- John Walker (ed.), Halliwell's Film Guide

NOTES

"Because of the huge risk-factor involved in an all-black presentation, Nicholas Schenck, the President of MGM, refused to allow Hallelujah to proceed until. . .King Vidor agreed to invest his salary in the production itself. The result was an impressive music drama about a poor cotton-picking family in the South, and one of the year's best films."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"In his herculean attempt to take comedy, romance, and tragedy and blend them into a big, gripping, Negro talker, King Vidor has turned out an unusual picture from a theme that is almost as ancient as the sun. Vidor's strict adherence to realism is so effective at times it is stark and uncanny."
- Variety

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION:
Director

The only known surviving print of Hallelujah is the edited revival version.

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