Editor Reviews:

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Hallelujah is a cinematic milestone: the first all-black feature from a major studio and famed director King Vidor's (The Champ, The Big Parade) first talkie. But the film surpasses its historical significance, telling a story of such profound dignity and understanding that it as fresh and moving as the day it premiered. Featuring a largely unknown cast and infused with spirituals, folk songs, blues and jazz (Irving Berlin provided two songs for the production), Hallelujah follows the fortunes of Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes), a poor cotton farmer. He succumbs to the temptations of Chick (Nina Mae McKinney), a mercenary honky-tonk girl, finds salvation in religion, and falls again when his obsession for Chick overpowers his better self. Love, loss, passion, redemption and brilliant moviemaking: Hallelujah has it all.

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Made in 1929, Hallelujah is an artifact of no small historical significance: the first major studio movie with an all-black cast and a white director (the esteemed King Vidor), it was also one of the earliest "talkies" after the silent film era. But it also has considerable artistic merit; simply put, Hallelujah is damned entertaining. Sure, the story isn't exactly subtle, a morality tale chronicling the tribulations of Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes), a poor cotton farmer who, succumbing to the carnal charms of the sexy Chick (Nina Mae McKinney, who was sometimes known as "the black Garbo"), finds himself caught up in a soul-scarring cycle of sin and salvation. There's also some painful dialogue of the "Where is you gwine?" and "Honey, I likes anything you's got!" variety. But the major themes presented here--temptation and transgression, redemption and repentance--are pure and universal, the dancing and singing (including two songs by Irving Berlin) are marvelous, and there are several scenes of extraordinary intensity. Those include Zeke's family's weeping, wailing response to the tragic death of his younger brother, followed by the repentant Zeke's turning to God, a sequence in which he's transformed into a latter day Martin Luther King, Jr., preaching with rhythms and cadences of hypnotic power. DVD extras include audio commentary by historian Donald Bogle, plus two shorts ("Pie, Pie Blackbird" and "The Black Network") featuring McKinney's singing, Eubie Blake's music, and the Nicholas Brothers' dance moves. A final note: Victoria Spivey, who portrays Missy Rose, the down home girl devoted to Zeke, was also one of the finest blues singers of the time. When she underwent a career revival in the early 1960s, she formed a record label whose first recording featured accompaniment by none other than Bob Dylan. --Sam Graham

Rating : - Classic African-American Film
Daniel L. Haynes, the actor portraying the lead character of "Zeke" was a Denzel Washington born ahead of his time. The same is true of the captivating Nina Mae McKinney, a forerunner of say Dorothy Dandridge or Halle Berry. Two powerful screen performances from one of Hollywood's first talkies(1929). Sure the stereotypes are evident, but with story telling that is still relevant for today, especially in our modern society of loose morals and uncontrolled passions. Zeke's innocent and somewhat gullible character is tempted after the delivery in town of his poor families cotton farming endeavors, by the allurements of a beautiful young woman(Ms. McKinney), known simply as "Chick, who flirts with him and seduces him into a crooked fixed-dice gambling loss with her accomplice and apparent lover "Hot Shot". All the families hard earned money is squandered away. Seeking revenge, Zeke overpowers the conman's gun and fires it wildly into the bar crowd. Whether by his own rage or from the initial shots of his crooked intended target, his younger brother "Spunk" is killed. He returns home to his worried mother and father the next morning, a broken man, with his dead brother lying in the back of the wagon. During a mournful funeral service in which he couldn't find self-forgiveness to enter the church, his forgiving father exits the church and finds Zeke lying prostrate with grief. Looking to the heavens, his father encourages him to look to the deliverer for forgiveness.

Zeke finds "religion" and we flash forward to his extremely popular evangelistic efforts as "the prophet." And while parading through the streets on the back of a donkey, cheered on by hundreds, he is mocked by the same young temptress and Hot Shot. She even heckles him while he's preaching in a later scene, until the conviction of being the only soul left in the audience not to respond to brother Zeke's altar call. She is brought to tears, and cries out for bro. Zeke to save her from the devil as well. But as we are taken to the baptism of converts, Ms. McKinney at her loveliest, adorned in a white robe awaiting her turn to be baptized in the river, is caught up in the spirit of emotion and sinks into the arms of the prophet, who, under a hypnotic spell, carries her away into a nearby tent, in full view of the multitude, with not so religious intent. His Godly mother soon follows them inside the tent, and pulls her wayward son back to his senses. And at a later church revival, Bro. Zeke again loses all sense of moral judgement, when he spies her in the congregation "caught-up in the Spirit" and steps from the pulpit, into the ecstatic crowd where they meet, as she, under the guise of emotionalism, lures him out the church door, and they run away together hand-in-hand into a life of sin. Zeke's fiance, "Missy Rose" franticly follows them into the woods, searching in vain and crying out: "Don't leave me Zeke!" But their's is not a happy ending; tragic even. I won't spoil the rest of the story. If for no other reason, a unique addition of historic value to any film lover's collection. Director King Vidor's first talkie and Hollywood's first major African-American production. Originally released by M-G-M, a very decent transfer to DVD of this nearly 80 year old movie.