In the 1920s-50s, many movie theaters in the United States were segregated. And, not surprisingly many black patrons wanted to watch black films....and so a small industry sprang up of films with all-black casts. While the films often are interesting to watch, I must admit that technically speaking, most of these movies I've seen are pretty bad....with lousy acting, direction and production values. The first of these films to be released with sound was 1931's "The Exile"...a film with much more historical value than entertainment value.

The film is about a man who is interested in doing something positive with his life. His girlfriend, however, is purely interested in money and soon opens a speakeasy...while he leaves to go out west to be a rancher. Once out west, he falls for a lady...but he decides to break it off, as he's a light-skinned black man and she's apparently white. He's worried how folks will treat him if they marry...not realizing that she is actually a light-skinned person just like him. So, he makes the mistake of traveling back east...where tragedy strikes when he hooks up with his old girlfriend.

The acting in this film is pretty bad most of the time. The sound quality is also not particularly good. So what does the film have going for it? Historical value...but not much more.

Like most of Micheaux's movies you have to watch a few times to really get it. I like to watch the rare gems of actors and actresses in his movies. Catherine Noisette, not Kathleen or Katherine Noisette, is a gorgeous lady with charm and she's the snotty, stuck up, glamorous, gossipy type in the fashion of Kay Francis and Myrna Loy. I would like to have seen more of her, she had what it took to be a full-fledged actress, her scenes are few but you won't miss her. The Black Press had quite a lot to say about her, she most of been of some importance. Eunice Brooks is as always great and convincing. I love the nightclub scenes, it shows what black America was like and doing at the time, very different from how white Hollywood depicted Black America, Blacks were beautiful and handsome, glamorous, fun-loving and elegant looking in this film, you'll only see them this way in Black Cinema films outside of Hollywood. If you don't like the movie, at least watch for the entertainment and the view of the real Black America. The movie is about John Baptiste, a good, farm boy type who is dating a wicked and highly ambitious woman named Edith, who he breaks up with when she doesn't give up her evil, sinful lifestyle and live a quiet, country life with him, he goes back to where he comes from and ends up falling for a woman who he presumes is white, played by Nora Newsome or Newcome and for that reason he breaks up with her and goes back to wicked Edith, she gets killed by a man she used and abused and John is suspected of killing her but all ends well, as all movies were back than, there is a happy ending John is cleared when the real killer of Edith played by the great black elegant actor Carl Mahon (one of Micheaux's very few better actors) confess and John finds that the girl he thought was white really is black (a monotonous theme of Micheaux's movies)and they live happily ever after.

The entertainment in the movie is wonderful, Micheaux didn't go wrong there, he always included good entertainment, you can't leave out black entertainers in a time when black entertainers were said to be the best. He knew if people didn't like the movie, they'll like the entertainment, which is true to this day. Black Cinema in those days made sure to include great music and entertainment. Leonard Harper, a man who helped many great black talents become successes, he was highly respected in his time in show business, he was like a Ziegfield and Busby Berkeley, he lends his expertise to Micheaux, we get to see his beauty chorus, tap dancers and Louise Cook, a popular dancer in the 30's who was married to one of the Mills Brothers. Donald Heywood's band is great as always, he had a helping hand in many Black Cinema films of the early years.