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Transcription: [00:09:02]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
--themes of the time, the race issue.

[00:09:05]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
He, he always sort of projected his films in terms of--

[00:09:11]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
They, they featured, uhm,
[00:09:16]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
black actors doing roles, portraying blacks
[00:09:20]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
in a sort of dramatic kind of roles, as opposed to the kinds of Hollywood films that were coming out at the time,
[00:09:26]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
where the only thing that the blacks were supposed to do was to either to sing and dance,
[00:09:29]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
or, you know, [[?]] to play the comic relief.

{SPEAKER name="Julius Lester"}
Hmm.

[00:09:34]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
He created dramatic roles. He wrote most of his own scripts.

[00:09:38]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And he also directed, and in some cases, unfortunately he directed with a heavy hand,
[00:09:44]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
almost all of his own material.

{SPEAKER name="Julius Lester"}
What do you mean "with a heavy hand?"
[00:09:47]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Well, he was I think far more interested in types
[00:09:52]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
rather than frequently in terms of talent, although he used talented performers,
[00:09:57]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
actors, experienced actors. He would frequently pick up people, sort of,
[00:10:02]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
literally, almost off the street, which is how he came to Paul Robeson,
[00:10:05]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
He liked the look of the man, and could envision him in some kind of a role.
[00:10:09]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And from that point of view, I think he, uh,
[00:10:13]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
he frequently, being more involved in, in what people looked like, rather than how much talent they had.
[00:10:17]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And, and make pictures, and if, for instance, he did a clumsy scene in a film,
[00:10:23]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
rather than to take it out, he would leave it in, and say, you know, "Maybe people would see it was kind of funny."
[00:10:28]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And, uh,--

{SPEAKER name="Julius Lester"}
Yeah.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And that's since he was shooting with a budget and
[00:10:32]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
being extremely shrewd as a businessman and certainly not sensitive as a creative individual.
[00:10:38]

{SPEAKER name="Julius Lester"}
Let's look at,-- We've been talking about films. Let's look at one film which, uh, the film called "Scar of Shame."
[00:10:45]

{SPEAKER name="Julius Lester"}
If you very briefly kind of set the scene for what we're going to see.
[00:10:48]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah, well "Scar of Shame" is another black production company.
[00:10:52]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
This was made by the Colored Players of Philadelphia,
[00:10:56]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and it is a silent film and it has, I think the-- It uses the best of the techniques of both eras,
[00:11:03]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
since it was made in 1928. This is at the height of the silent film era.
[00:11:07]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And the film itself makes use of all the advanced techniques that had been developed up--
[00:11:13]

Transcription Notes:
Timestamps go where you turn off the dialogue, by pressing CONTROL-I. Also, include the final Timestamp at the end of the last dialogue segment. Julius Lester was the host of Free Time - is the male interviewer. Pearl Bowser is the female being interviewed. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-03 23:45:09