''The Gunsaulus Mystery'' is a 1921 American silent

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, produced, and written 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 ...

. The film was inspired by events and figures in the 1913-1915 trial of

Leo Frank Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national at ...

for the murder of

Mary Phagan Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national at ...

. The film is now believed to be

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

. Micheaux remade the film 1935 as ''

Murder in Harlem ''Murder in Harlem'' (also released as ''Lem Hawkins Confession'' and ''Brand of Cain'') is a 1935 American race film written, produced and directed by Oscar Micheaux, who also appears in the film. He remade his 1921 silent film '' The Gunsaulus ...

''.

Plot

The body of Myrtle Gunsaulus, a young

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

girl, is discovered in the basement of a New York City factory. Arthur Gilpin, the African-American janitor who discovered the body, is arrested and charged with her murder. Arthur’s sister Ida May (

Evelyn Preer Evelyn Preer (née Jarvis; July 26, 1896 – November 17, 1932), was a pioneering American stage and screen actress and jazz and blues singer of the 1910s through the early 1930s. Preer was known within the black community as "The First Lady of ...

) contacts her former boyfriend, the attorney Sidney Wyeth (

Lawrence Chenault Lawrence Chenault (November 23, 1877 – December 27, 1943)Wintz, Cary D. and Paul Finkelman. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Ebook, Taylor & Francis group. 2004 was an American vaudeville performer and silent film actor. He appeared in ...

), to defend Gilpin in court. During the trial, Wyeth redirects attention for the murder away from Gilpin to Anthony Brisbane, a white man with a history of sexual deviancy. Gilpin is exonerated while Brisbane is revealed as Myrtle Gunsaulus's killer.

Cast

*Dick Abrams *Louis De Bulger *Mabel Young *Eddie Brown *Hattie Christian *E. G. Tatum * Mattie Wilkes

Production

Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific African-American filmmaker of the race film genre, had previously addressed the issue of violence by whites against blacks in his 1920 feature ''

Within Our Gates ''Within Our Gates'' is a 1920 American silent film by the director Oscar Micheaux that portrays the contemporary racial situation in the United States during the early twentieth century, the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Ku Klux Kla ...

'', which aroused controversy.John W. Ravage, "Micheaux, Oscar."
BlackPast, accessed December 14, 2010 That film’s storyline, which included a portrayal of racial lynching and the sexual attack by a white man against a black woman, resulted in censorship rulings in Atlanta and other major cities throughout the U.S. Micheaux tackled another controversial subject with his 1921 ''The Gunsaulus Mystery''.Overview: The Gunsaulus Mystery"
''New York Times'' The plot was based on the 1913 murder of

and the trial of

. After an African American was first interrogated, police attention turned to Frank, the

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

-American manager of the factory. He was prosecuted and convicted of the crime. After appeals had failed, he received commutation of his death sentence, but Frank was kidnapped and lynched on August 17, 1915. Micheaux shot ''The Gunsaulus Mystery'' at the Estee Studios in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and distributed the film through his Micheaux Film Corporation. Evelyn Preer, the star of ''Within Our Gates'', also starred in this production. Micheaux revisited the subject again in 1935 with a sound remake, which was released under the titles ''

'' and ''Lem Hawkins' Confession''. Especially in this version, Micheaux used the conventions of the detective story to introduce differing narratives and rework the binary nature of the trial, in which an African-American man and Jewish-American man had testified against each other. No print of ''The Gunsaulus Mystery'' is known to exist in any archive or private collection, and it is considered to be a

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

. Events of the Mary Phagan murder would be covered in detail in the 1988 four-hour TV miniseries ''

The Murder of Mary Phagan ''The Murder of Mary Phagan'' is a 1988 American two-part television miniseries starring Jack Lemmon. The supporting cast features Richard Jordan, Robert Prosky, Peter Gallagher, Kathryn Walker, Rebecca Miller, Paul Dooley, Charles Dutton, Kevin ...

''.''The Murder of Mary Phagan''
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References

External links

* * *
surviving lantern promo; ''The Gunsaulus Mystery''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunsaulus Mystery 1921 films Lost American films Films directed by Oscar Micheaux American black-and-white films American silent feature films American crime drama films 1921 crime drama films Race films 1921 lost films Lost crime drama films 1920s American films Silent American drama films

Plot

Cast

Production

See also

References

External links