''The Dungeon'' is a 1922

race film 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 ...

directed, written, produced and distributed by

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 ...

, considered the African-American Cecil B. DeMille due to his prolific output of films during the silent era, one of his greatest works being '' Body and Soul'' (1924). ''The Dungeon'' was his first horror effort, an early

blaxploitation Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...

take on the '' Bluebeard'' legend. Micheaux was criticized by

D. Ireland Thomas Damon Ireland Thomas (1875-1955) was an American stage performer, newspaper columnist, and theater manager. An influential film critic, he wrote for '' The Chicago Defender'' in 1920s, reviewing Black film and events at African American theaters. ...

, a columnist with the '' Chicago Defender'', for his casting of light-skinned African Americans who could pass for white, attempting to make his films more commercially successful. Thomas questioned whether Micheaux was "relying on his name alone to tell the public that it is a race production; or maybe he is after booking it in white theaters." No print of the film is known to exist and it is presumed to be a lost film.

Plot

The film focuses on Myrtle Downing, an African-American woman who is coerced into marrying a corrupt would-be politician named Gyp Lassiter even though she is really in love with Stephen Cameron, a young lawyer. When she discovers that her husband has conspired to support segregationist policies in exchange for support by white political power brokers, she objects to his crooked dealings and gets herself imprisoned in a secret dungeon where her husband had murdered his previous wives.

Cast

* Shingzie Howard as Myrtle Downing * William Fountaine as Stephen Cameron * J. Kenneth Goodman as Gyp Lassiter * William Crowell * Earle Browne Cook * Blanche Thompson"The Dungeon (1922)"
at IMDB.

References

External links

* 1922 films 1922 horror films 1922 lost films 1920s American films American black-and-white films American silent feature films Films directed by Oscar Micheaux Lost American films Lost horror films Race films Silent horror films {{1920s-horror-film-stub