David Starkman (1885-c.1947) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n immigrant to the USA who helped found

Colored Players Film Corporation The Colored Players Film Corporation, also known as The Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, was an independent silent film production company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Primarily founded by David Starkman and Sherman H. Du ...

, an independent

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

studio. He wrote and produced the film company's most famous film ''

The Scar of Shame ''The Scar of Shame'' is a silent film shot in the winter of 1927 and released in April 1929. It is a silent film melodrama featuring black actors and was written for a predominantly black audience.Cripps, Thomas. Black Film as Genre. Indiana Un ...

''.

Colored Players Film Corporation

In 1926, Starkman helped to found the Colored Players Film Corporation with Sherman H. "Uncle Dud" Dudley, a veteran of

vaudevillian Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

and

race movie The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produce ...

s. Dudley and Starkman shared a common vision in which there was a black

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

free of the traditional black

stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

s. With Starkman's theatre in Philadelphia as a base of operations, Colored Players Film Corporation developed with Dudley as the president of the company and Starkman in charge of the management, finances and operation of the

production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and ...

. The Colored Players Film Corporation took the morals and ethics of Starkman and Dudley seriously and their films attempt to show the

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

s as successful, able to achieve middle class status, and apart from the typical stereotypes and

minstrel film A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who ...

s of the time. While only Dudley and the cast comprised the African Americans of the Colored Players Film Corporation, the collaboration between both the white and black staff was an integral part of the company. The interracial co-operation found in the company allowed for the success of the film ''The Scar of Shame''.Wood, Brett
"Turner Classic Movie Monthly Schedule and Featured Movie Stars from Our Classic Movie Program"
''TCM Turner Classic Movies''. Retrieved 12 February 2011.

The Scar of Shame

The peak of the company's success came when it produced the film ''The Scar of Shame'' in 1929, a year before the company closed. Starkman produced the film and wrote it with the co-operation of the black staff in order to understand the

social caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

among African Americans living within the same neighborhood. The film primarily focuses on two

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

s, each from different levels of society. The main protagonist must choose whether or not to be with a woman from a lower caste of society or to leave her in order to keep with the plan his

social status Social status is the level of social value a person is considered to possess. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honour, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. Stat ...

has pre-planned for him.

The White Micheaux?

Sometimes called the "

Oscar Micheaux Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (; January 2, 1884 – March 25, 1951) was an author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled ...

" of the white independent

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

s, Starkman helped to produce and write ''The Scar of Shame'' a famous film that the Colored Players Film Corporation produced and released before it was eventually absorbed and merged with another film production company. Starkman eventually went

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debt ...

due to the competition with other independent film companies and a lack of revenue brought in by the company's productions.Lupack, Barbara Tepa. ''Literary Adaptations in Black American Cinema: from Micheaux to Morrison''. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, 2002. 164-66. Print.

Downfall

Although Starkman worked for his audience in order to enhance their experience in the theatre, he did not always have the money to fund his films. He eventually sold his theatre and then turned his wife's

inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...

into cash. He intimidated local

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

lawyers and merchants for capital.Smith, Valerie. ''Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video''. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997. 54-55. Print. He ultimately wrote scripts and carried the "release prints to out of town play dates and ountthe house in person" (Smith 54). During production of his last film, ''The Scar of Shame'', Starkman began to offer his own car for the film, put forward his sister's house as a shooting location and decorated the set with his own

furniture Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...

. In the end, the financial pressure got the best of Starkman and after releasing ''The Scar of Shame'' he could no longer compete because of the arrival of

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

, ruining him and similar independent film companies. In a last effort to save the Colored Players Film Corporation, Starkman merged the company with one of his partner's, Sherman Dudley, but the company never took off.

Notes

References

* Lupack, Barbara Tepa. ''Literary Adaptations in Black American Cinema: from Micheaux to Morrison''. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, 2002. * Smith, Valerie. ''Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video''. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997.

External links

TCM Turner Classic Movies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starkman, David 1947 deaths American film producers Austrian emigrants to the United States 1885 births