Ten Nights in a Barroom
About Ten Nights in a Barroom
Joe Morgan goes after the saloon keeper whose bar has cost him his daughter. The chase turns back on Morgan, and he comes out of it wanting a different life. Charles Gilpin plays Morgan. Lawrence Chenault plays Simon Slade.
Cast & crew
More about Ten Nights in a Barroom
Roy Calnek directed. The company, headed by David Starkman, Louis Groner, and Sherman H. Dudley, shot it in Philadelphia in the spring and summer of 1926. It is based on Timothy Shay Arthur's novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There and on William W. Pratt's play. New York licensed it on 27 December 1926. It runs 63 minutes, seven reels, 6,700 feet.
Themes
Background
The temperance story was already seventy years old. Colored Players retold it for Black audiences in Philadelphia and then in Harlem, where the Grant Theatre advertised it in the last week of December 1926.
Making
The Philadelphia Tribune of 19 June 1926 still had the company shooting at the Haverford Avenue studio.
Preservation
The George Eastman Museum holds 35mm elements. Kino Lorber issued the film in 2016.
Notes
- Myra Burwell plays Fannie Morgan. Harry Henderson plays Willie Hammond. William A. Clayton Jr. plays Harvey Green.
- It is the second Colored Players release, after A Prince of His Race.
- Of the company's four films, this and The Scar of Shame are the ones that survive.
- Earlier film versions of the story used white casts. This one has an African American cast.
- A 35mm print from the George Eastman Museum was included in Kino Lorber's 2016 Pioneers of African-American Cinema set.
Scenes
- Morgan sets out after the man who runs the bar where his daughter was killed.
Influenced by
- Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There (novel)
- Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (play by William W. Pratt)
Also available
- Kino Lorber, Pioneers of African-American Cinema (2016)
