Veiled Aristocrats (1932)

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Veiled Aristocrats is a 1932 American pre-Code race film written, directed, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. The film deals with the theme of "passing" by mixed-race African Americans to avoid racial discrimination. It is a remake of The House Behind the Cedars (1927), based on a novel by the same name published in 1900 by Charles W. Chesnutt. Micheaux may have borrowed the new title from a 1923 novel by Gertrude Sanborn.

Production

Veiled Aristocrats was Oscar Micheaux's second film adaptation of the 1900 novel The House Behind the Cedars by author Charles W. Chesnutt. In 1927 he produced it as a silent film (no print of that film is known to exist today).

In his 1932 adaptation, Micheaux altered the Chesnutt story by having Rena and Frank marry, and allowing them a happy ending. (Chesnutt's book ends with Rena's death). Micheaux's screenplay is often blunt in its exploration of color lines within the African-American community; at one point John says: "I've heard, right on the street, a coal black Negro declares he loves her!"

Micheaux shot much of Veiled Aristocrats at his mother-in-law's home in Montclair, New Jersey. Lorenzo Tucker, who played John Walden, was a popular leading man of the race film genre. He was dubbed the "black Valentino" because of his striking good looks. Laura Bowman was the leading lady in several of Micheaux's films during the 1930s, including Ten Minutes to Live (1932) and Murder in Harlem (1935).

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