Briefly discusses the cast and the Colored Players while announcing the premiere of The Scar of Shame. By Elissa Stern

Advertises a screening and “monster benefit” for The Scar of Shame at the Gibson’s Theater at Broad and Lombard streets in Philadelphia. Calls it “the Greatest of Race Movies” with “An All Star Colored Cast” and includes seven screen shots in the ad. By Elissa Stern

Royal. Baltimore Afro-American, 13. April 13, 1929. [Cited in Oscar Micheaux and his circle : African-American filmmaking and race cinema of the silent era / Pearl Bowser, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser editors and curators. [0253339944] Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2001.]

This elaborate full page advertisement for the Colored Players Film Corporation’s The Scar of Shame in Baltimore includes a plot summary and a screen shot reproduction and bills the film as the “First All-Colored Talking Picture!”. By Elissa Stern

Goldwyn, R. (1974, November 17). The Scar of Shame: Why the Fuss over this Old, Made-in-Philadelphia, Silent Black Film.  Sunday Bulletin, Philadelphia Bulletin, p. 16.  [Cited in Oscar Micheaux and his circle : African-American filmmaking and race cinema of the silent era / Pearl Bowser, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser editors and curators. [0253339944] Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2001.278-85.]

By Elissa Stern  

Fraser, Gerald C.  Two Weekends of Black Film Classics at Symphony Space ...  The New York times [0362-4331] (Nov 30, 1979).

This article announces a 1979 screening of the Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia’s 1927 film The Scar of Shame in association with a screening of Oscar Micheaux’s Body and Soul(1925), briefly summarizing the two films and the context of their production.  These are billed as “Black Film Classics” providing an example of the place the work of the Colored Players has come to hold in film historical discourse.  By Elissa Stern

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Gaines, Jane. The Scar of Shame: Skin Color and Caste in Black Silent Melodrama. Cinema journal [0009-7101] 27.2 54-56. Summer 1987.

Gaines analyzes issues of aesthetics and spectatorship surrounding the 1927 Colored Players Film Corporation’s 1927 film The Scar of Shame. She notes that the portrayals of black figures in the film are specific to a particular historical moment and are “haunted by white society” and a pervasive class consciousness among the black community (p. 5). She addresses the political views of the owners of the company in reference to those portrayed in the film citing the influence of a racist society as a cause for the melodramatic “stylistic excess” in the film (p. 16). By Elissa Stern

Bowser, P. Lost, Then Found: The Wedding Scene from The Scar of Shame (1929). Oscar Micheaux and his circle : African-American filmmaking and race cinema of the silent era / Pearl Bowser, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser editors and curators. [0253339944] Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2001. 188-9.

This brief article includes a description of a “rediscovered” scene from the Colored Players Film Corporation’s 1929 silent film The Scar of Shame. Bowser also provides bits of information about the history of the actual prints of the film. The American Film Institute acquired 35mm prints of the film around 1970 and this became the commercially available video version. The wedding scene, however, discovered a few years later by Bowser in a 16mm version, is missing from the AFI version.  By Elissa Stern

Cripps, Thomas. Black film as genre / Thomas Cripps. [0253375029] Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1978.

This book contains a brief discussion of the Colored Players Film Corporation in its Preface, highlighting the white ownership of the supposedly colored production company. The book also contains analyses of 6 race films (The Scar of Shame, The St. Louis Blues, The Blood of Jesus, The Negro Soldier, Nothing But a Man, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss[sic] Song) in the context of being “black genre films”, a filmography of black genre film (title, date, director), and an appendix with credit information for these 6 films. The chapter devoted to the analysis of the social and historical context of the production of the Colored Players’ 1927 film The Scar of Shame focuses on the use of white cinematographers and directors in the tale of a black middle-class melodrama. He also discusses an attempt to increase black attendance at film screenings.  By Elissa Stern

Production-February-March 1929
Premiere-April 13-17, 1929 (New York Premiere), April 15-20, 1929 (Philadelphia Premiere)

This film was shot at the studios of Philadelphia-based production company, the Colored Players Film Corporation, at 5813 Woodlawn Avenue with local actors and was screened at Philadelphia’s Gibson’s Theater in April 1929 and the Pearl Theater in June of the same year.  By Elissa Stern