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To Paul Robeson the part was heaven-sent. No one anywhere could have done more with it. This magnificent actor strode through the picture like a colussus — his rich baritone voice booming in cadences almost musical — and now and then raised in plaintive, sweet song.
Sometimes in the film play, Du Bose Heyward provided him with a line or two which augments O'Neill's delineation of Brutus Jones.
" King Brutus ! " he exclaims, to hear for himself what sound it will make.
" Somehow," he says, " that don't make enough noise ! "
" T-h-e E-m-p-e-r-o-r J-o-n-e-s I" he booms with a grin of extreme satisfaction.
Indeed, Du Bose Heyward, the scenarist, who did the screen adaptation, provides Robeson with many more lines. Brutus Jones' rise from PuUman porter to Emperor is traced in detail — whereas only referred to in the play. For the purposes of cinema and the exigencies demanded in America of the narrative film, this was deemed expedient. But the film suffers from some three reels of " introduction " and doesn't reach the point where O'Neill begins his play until well over a half hour has elapsed. The " introduction " is long and tedious and adds nothing to the story. The play is more taut, tightly woven, nervous and foreboding. It is only in its last few reels that the film approaches any of these qualities. And then only in an imitative sort of way — never in its own way.
The only really touching moments are those in which Robeson as the deposed Emperor flees through the tortured forest at night — a panic stricken, terrified being, maddened by the drums and the " ha'nts " which bring his quivering kaleidoscopic past before him. Here Robeson is quite magnificent — and rises above any qualities the director or scenarist had to give the story.
The Emperor Jones as a film is less unified, less a perfectly conceived work than Vidor's Hallelujah, for instance. Hallelujah had a real beginning, middle and end — all related to each other — and following upon each other in unswerving sequence. Perhaps here we have a justification of Hollywood. There was little or nothing superfluous in Hallelujah. There is much that is superfluous in The Emperor Jones. The chase through the swamp in Hallelujah was every bit as thrilling as Brutus Jones' inextricable journey through the midnight forest — yet Hallelujah was ten times better cinema than The Emperor Jones. It had rhythm and swing, cadence shunted into cadence and the whole remained a unity in the mind of the director from its inception. The Emperor Jones as a film has the rhythm of the drum beats but Hallelujah was rhythm personified. It had what Rene Clair calls " inner rhythm "—it MOVES !
I am afraid the real hero of the film, The Emperor Jones is still Eugene O'Neill, who provided it with any merit it has and to Paul Robeson who gives it what few moments of life it has. The director, scenarist and everyone else concerned meant well, and they deserve much credit for that, if only to have revealed to us Paul Robeson in so ideal a part — which is as much as anyone could ask from the cinema of the human being.
Herman G. Weinberg.