For diversity and rarity, the ‘Emperor’ rules

Celebrate the earliest days of diversity in Hollywood with the acclaimed Paul Robeson (1898-1976) in “The Emperor Jones.”

The 1933 film based on the Eugene O’Neill play screens tonight for free in the Library of Congress Mount Pony Theater as part of the library’s month-long tribute to Black History Month.

A testament to a pioneer of the dramatic arts, “The Emperor Jones” is also a testament to the LOC’s devotion to preserving the 76-year-old film that as recently as the 70s could only be watched on scratchy 16mm copies.

Robeson, a black actor raised in New Jersey, stars as Brutus Jones, a railroad porter looking for love in all the wrong places. A manipulator, liar, gambler and murderer, Brutus ends up on a chain gang, where he kills again to escape and ends up in the Caribbean.

After attaining great riches and playing mind games with the natives, who believe him immortal, Jones becomes Emperor Jones. His tyranny is short-lived, however, and what awaits him in the jungle could be voodoo.

Like the O’Neill play, which showed on Broadway, the movie version of “The Emperor Jones” was quite controversial. Soon after its release, the movie was dropped from circulation and through the years the original version was chopped, censured and edited into oblivion.

And then the Library of Congress got its hand on it.

Jennie Saxena, now of Long Island, headed the two-year restoration project back when the LOC Motion Picture Conservation Center was in Dayton, Ohio.

“It was like just putting a jigsaw puzzle together from about 18 different boxes each of which was missing pieces,” she said in a recent phone interview.

Fortunately, the restoration team, which numbered in the dozens, had access to the film’s script, which, ironically, was attained from the records of the New York Censure Board, Saxena said.

“To appease the censor’s fears of white backlash against the film, many important scenes were cut,” she co-writes in a lengthy paper, “Preserving African-American Cinema: The case of The Emperor Jones,” from 2003. “The shot in which Brutus Jones strikes and kills a brutal white guard on a chain gang was removed, leaving a puzzling gap in action. Some markets insisted that an instance be cut in which Smithers, a white character, lights a cigarette for Jones.”

In the south, she said, they cut scenes in which black people dominated white people.

In Canada, they cut all references to the ‘n’ word.

But the LOC restoration provided “an excellent improvement over anything seen of this title” since it was released 76 years ago, Saxena writes in “Preserving African-American Cinema.”

And yet, it’s still incomplete.

One key scene perhaps lost to time describes Jones hallucinating about being sold into slavery from a slave ship.

“Still missing,” Saxena said, “until somebody finds it in their grandfather’s basement.”

“The Emperor Jones” was worth restoring, she added, and the job ultimately landed with the Library of Congress.

“Because it was a film that nobody else would do. It’s a film that doesn’t have a lot of the glamour that would make a commercial company produce it,” Saxena said. “It’s not one the public is clamoring for, but one that needed to be saved.”

She said it’s probably Robeson’s best role. Unfortunately, because he was black, Robeson’s talent was sorely “underused in Hollywood,” Saxena said. Historical markers from the time emerge in the movie shedding light on a very different political culture, she added.

Art imitates life in this case as well. Robeson was known for his outspoken political views and was condemned by the House Un-American Activities Committee. This, however, only contributed to the notoriety and scarcity of “The Emperor Jones.”

Long lost to popular culture, the restored movie is now available for purchase on DVD.

Or, go see it on the big screen for free on Mount Pony tonight. The show starts at 7:30.

RESERVATIONS: (540) 827-1079 x79994 –or- (202) 707-9994.

Don’t have reservations? Show up in the lobby early to get on stand-by. All outstanding reservations will be awarded 10 minutes prior to show time.