Charles W. Chesnutt to Oscar Micheaux, 29 January 1924
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January 29, 1924.
Micheaux Film Corporation,1
3457 S. State Street,
Chicago, Ill.
Gentlemen:
Attention Mr. Oscar Micheaux.
In your last letter to me regarding your unpaid note of $100.00 for the picture rights of my "The House Behind the Cedars,"2 you stated that you would pay the note when you had made the film.3
I had the pleasure of seeing your picture of "The Birthright" about a week ago.4 It was very well done, and was certainly extremely realistic. Neither the author nor the picture flattered the negro one particle, and they both showed up the southern white in his least amiable characteristics, which seem always to come to the front in his dealings with the negro.
I learned from your brother,5 who was in Cleveland the night I saw the picture, that "The House Behind the Cedars" has been filmed, and that you expect to run it before very long.6 I am looking forward with interest to see what you will do with it, and in the meantime I am wondering if I may not expect payment of that note before very long.7
Hoping that you will relieve my suspense in the matter and give me any further information you may have about the picture, I remain,
Very truly yours, CWC:SCorrespondent: Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951) was a Black American writer and film director known for his films about race and racism. Originally from Illinois, he began his career as a novelist and later founded the Micheaux Film and Book Company (ultimately renamed Micheaux Film Corporation) in 1919. He first adapted his early novel The Homesteader to film, and directed and produced over three dozen films in the 1920s and 30s, typically writing the scripts as well as overseeing the low-budget production and distribution of the films. Several of his films were loosely based on the works of Black authors, including Chesnutt. After the demise of his company in 1940, Micheaux founded a publishing business and wrote several more novels.
1. The Micheaux Film Corporation began in 1919 as the Micheaux Book and Film Company. Founded by Black novelist, film director, and film producer Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951), it was based in Chicago, with offices in New York City and Roanoke, Virginia, and became the most successful Black-owned film company of the 20th century. In the 1920s and '30s, Micheaux produced at least three dozen films featuring Black actors and themes he believed to be of particular interest to Black audiences, three of them based loosely on Chesnutt's work. In 1928, the company voluntarily filed for bankruptcy, reorganized, and survived until 1940. Most of the films are lost. [back]
2. The House Behind the Cedars (Houghton Mifflin, 1900) was Chesnutt's first published novel. House evolved over more than a decade from a short story, "Rena Walden," first drafted in the late 1880s. It was the only novel by Chesnutt to be serialized, once in 1900-1901 in the monthly Self Culture and again in 1921-1922 in the Black weekly Chicago Defender. House was also his only novel to be adapted to film (1924 and 1932). [back]
3. Chesnutt, in this last surviving letter to Oscar Micheaux, most likely refers to Micheaux's letter of October 7, 1922, i.e., more than 15 months earlier, and the last communication from Micheaux Film Corporation that has been preserved. [back]
4. Oscar Micheaux's (1884–1951) lost silent film Birthright (working title Hooker's Bend) played at Cleveland's Temple Theater January 6–12, 1924, before it opened at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem on January 14. According to promotional material preserved by Chesnutt, Oscar Micheaux's brother Swan E. Micheaux (1896–1975) was present for the Cleveland showings. Based on a 1922 novel of the same title by White American writer Thomas S. Stribling (1881-1965), the film dealt with a mixed-race Harvard-educated man's experience with racism as he returns to his hometown in rural Tennessee to open a school for Black children. [back]
5. Swan Emerson Micheaux (1896–1975) was Oscar Micheaux's younger brother and served as secretary, treasurer, and booking manager of the Micheaux Film Corporation from 1920 to 1927. He was suspected of financial mismanagement and forced to resign in 1928. [back]
6. The lost 1924 silent film version of The House Behind the Cedars, produced by the Micheaux Film Corporation with a script by Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951), was very loosely based on Chesnutt's novel. It was filmed in 1923 in Roanoke, Virginia, and New York City, starring the Black actors Shingzie Howard (1902–1992) as Rena, Lawrence Chenault (1877–1943) as her White suitor, and Douglass Griffin as Frank Fowler. It premiered at Philadelphia’s Royal Theater in December 1924 and was shown in the spring of 1925 in Black movie theaters nationwide. Chesnutt saw it, but it is not known when. Micheaux later remade the film with sound under the title Veiled Aristocrats (1932) without notifying Chesnutt. [back]
7. Between January and September 1921, Oscar Micheaux negotiated with Chesnutt to pay $500 in five installments for the film rights to Chesnutt's novel The House Behind the Cedars. This was a low sum for movie rights to a novel, but Chesnutt likely took into account that Black-produced films had low budgets. Ultimately, 25% (rather than the originally suggested 33%) of the money received went to Chesnutt's publisher, Houghton Mifflin Company. Several of the payments were delayed, and Chesnutt never received the final installment. Micheaux's film adaptation was released in December 1924. [back]
