Spencer Williams Movies

Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience.

During World War II, a young African American is forced to continue his family’s tradition of military service when he is drafted into the...

Virtually unseen for more than eighty years, Spencer Williams’s first film is a one-reel comedy short in which a rivalry between two men is...

Musical film with an all-black cast.

Bad News Johnson, a con artist from Memphis, Tennessee, arrives in Dallas, Texas, accompanied by his dim sidekick July Jones with only twenty-five...

A wandering cowboy and his sidekick try to resolve a murder.

A cowboy is wrongfully accused of murder. He winds up in Harlem, where he assumes the identity of a preacher-turned-gangster who looks like him. He...

A filmed variety show featuring the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra with special guests.

Razz accidentally shoots his wife Martha when his hunting rifle drops on the floor and discharges. The church congregation gathers at Martha’s...

Daisy Mae Walker is an aspiring singer from a small town in Texas, who comes to a Big City to pursue a show business career. A kindly cab driver and...

A newlywed couple is visited by a strange old woman who harbors a secret about the young girl's father.

Johnny Fraser leaves his mother in their small home town and sets out for the big city. He obtains a job with a large firm of architects. Steve...

Privacy Robson is a downtrodden husband who takes advice from his friend Florian Slappey. He eventually gets the upper hand after starting divorce...

Bob Blake and his sidekick and four singing cowboys arrive at the Jackson ranch where Bob learns from Betty Jackson that her brother, Joe, is...

A cowboy helps a pretty young woman find lost gold. Restored by the Academy Film Archive with additional funding from the National Endowment for the...

The film is set in Memphis, Tennessee and focuses on a street sweeper who comes upon a large parcel of money. He uses the newly acquired wealth to go...

Film by Spencer Williams.

After losing their parents in a flood at a young age, two brothers grow up to become a police officer and a lawyer, working with a local newspaper...

A nightclub owner's wife, jealous of his attentions to his star singer, schemes to get her fired.

"Willie Dime," a big, bad taxi driver, is very jealous of "Miss Eva" and it burns him up to see any fool Jelly-bean "carrying on flirtatious...