MovieChat Forums > The Mayor of Hell (1933) Discussion > The black boy

The black boy

posted 13 years ago by daedalus1337
7 replies | jump to latest

I was watching this with a friend of mine, who seemed to automatically assume the black boy would be ostracized or discriminated against. He was surprised to see that the boy was subjected to no racism in the film, he was considered just one of the gang and even given the position of 'district attorney' in their little justice system. None of the guards even seem to care.
I just thought his reaction was interesting and probably pretty common, everyone seems to think that back then a black kid MUST HAVE been given a hard time on a daily basis, but people haven't really changed as much as everyone seems to believe.

Just a minor thing I thought I'd point out. I'm a huge fan of early cinema and especially love '30s gangster-fare, but it seems like everyone I watch these kinds of films with always holds some kind of skewed misperception about the past. 'Mayor of Hell' was pretty good, though far from Cagney's best. Didn't think the plot was terribly engaging in this one. My first thought was 'I wonder how the Dead End Kids would've handled this script!', then I found out they were in Crime School (1938), essentially a remake of this film, which doesn't seem to have garnered too much critical acclaim.

[–] digitaldiva 13 years ago

Hi daedalus,

The young black actor was Farina, who had already achieved a great deal of acclaim with Hal Roach in the Our Gang comedies. One of the interesting points of movies of the pre-code is that a number of directors used African Americans in very interesting roles where their skin color was incidental to the plot.

[–] kimpunkrock 13 years ago

well said. I agree that his treatment was regular unlike many of the other racist overtones in other films. I love this movie, better than crime school and I own them both. this one being pre-code makes it better.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=186977

The Truth is out there.

[–] zetes 13 years ago

That is perhaps true, but, man, is the actor who plays that kid's dad cringe-worthy.

Let's wail!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy40TT_i7us

[–] diddymuck 12 years ago

true, but he had probably the best line in the flick!

[–] diddymuck 12 years ago

actually this is one of several occasions where blacks are presented as equals in NY's slum environment...Jews, Hungarians, Italians, Blacks, Irish, and Germans huddle so close together that getting along is vital.
Besides, they share misery...one thing they have in common.

[–] jfd0210 10 years ago

"...they share miser..."
Yes.
My parents grew up in the Depression, and both said essentially the same thing when I asked them about how Black people were treated in their neighborhoods.
My dad grew up in Kansas and said they had one black kid in their class (a one room school house). His nick name was "Snowball" and no one thought anything different of him.
My mom was more to the point and said, "Everyone in the neighborhood was just poor. You were in the same boat."

[–] TheBoz 11 years ago

I agree. Farina Hoskins was one of the early our gang and I think did some shorts with Jackie Cooper. Ive seen many early American movies where Black people are portrayed as normal hardworking family oriented Americans as they should have been to be fair.

Its only when leftists took over Hollywood that they realized that happy Black people voted republican so for a fact they set out to destroy black owned businesses such as hotels and restaurants that served the Black community in terms of their self respect and commerce. Come the 60s they are all suddenly drug pushers and feather hatted pimps and woman beaters and breeders of kids they couldn't support. They had a simple plan. Destroy the Black economic structure which leads to destruction of the community and the family unit.

Maybe their was Jim Crow in the South, but up in Harlem up to a certain year, white people could still go to black owned clubs to enjoy a quite evening a good drink and some good jazz without a second thought. The gangster element left the community alone. They didnt come into eaterys and shoot down their enemies in cold blood like the Cosa Nostra. Leftist made Harlem and Watts slums. They knew the landlords were killing kids with paint chips and rats and they could have agitated and raised a ruckus to do something sooner.

But they needed to make it so Black fell so low that they would come in on their White Horses, left over from their KKK days and save them and make them the Black mans beholden to them, even though up to then they fought against Republicans changes in discriminatory laws. Separate but Equal is a Democrats call to arms. That's why they want to give certain groups special protection with hate laws and all this. Special treatment, not just equal treatment being the clue to who invented the separate but equal concept.