Veiled Aristocrats (1932)

Veiled Aristocrats (1932). 48m

“Veiled Aristocrats (1932) u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e* 1/2 (out of 4)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eJohn Walden (Walter Fleming) has been away at college for many years where he passed himself off as a white man. He eventually returns home and learns that his sister Rena (Lucille Lewis) is dating a very dark colored man. John tries to convince her that itu0026#39;s best to pass herself off as being white even if that means turning her back on their mother.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOscar Micheauxu0026#39;s VEILED ARISTOCRATS is another one of the directoru0026#39;s films where heu0026#39;s preaching. Yes, this film was meant to tell black people not to be ashamed of who they are and to live life as who they are and not something that theyu0026#39;re not. For decades this film was lost and then a two-reel version turned up. Finally another version turned up and runs for 48-minutes but Iu0026#39;m not sure if this is complete or not. Iu0026#39;m going to guess that itu0026#39;s still missing some footage as the film seems very uneven at times.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWith that said, even if the film had been complete Iu0026#39;m not sure it would have made a different. Iu0026#39;ve gone through the majority of Micheauxu0026#39;s work that isnu0026#39;t lost and I must say that it seems this here might have had the lowest budget of anything Iu0026#39;ve seen. Technically the film is very ugly at times and thereu0026#39;s no question that many of the performances leave a lot to be desired. Itu0026#39;s hard to be too critical of the filmmaker because it was 1932 and there just wasnu0026#39;t much funding for these types of race films so Micheaux pretty much had to do whatever it took to get a film out there.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eItu0026#39;s also worth noting that many of his films ran into issues with the censors so thereu0026#39;s no question that the director was simply behind the eight ball. With that said, as poor as this film is, if youu0026#39;re a fan of these race movies then youu0026#39;ll still want to check it out but the director has better out there.”