The Trooper of Troop K

The Trooper of Troop K is a Lincoln Motion Picture Company film produced in 1917,[1] directed by Harry A. Gant and starring Noble Johnson. It was the production company's second film.[2]

Trooper of Troop K
Film poster
Directed byHarry Gant
StarringNoble Johnson
Jimmie Smith
Beulah Hall
Production
company
Distributed byLincoln Motion Picture Company
Release date
1917
Running time
3 reels
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Set at the Battle of Carrizal, the film contains a battle scene with hundreds of extras,[3] depicting African American U.S. soldiers fighting Mexican soldiers.[4]

The film originally consisted of 3 reels of 35 mm movie film.[5] Most of this is now lost film. The small portion that survives is earliest extant fragment of Black-produced cinema.[6]

Synopsis
A frame from the small portion of the film that still exists. Hall and Smith are in the foreground; Noble in the upper-left iris shot was the key to the film's rediscovery in 2022.

Joe (Noble Johnson) is fond of Clara (Beulah Hall) but his inept romantic gestures do not impress her. Jimmy (Jimmie Smith) reacts with disgust to Joe's antics, and competes with Joe to win the affections of Clara. Joe joins the army because Clara suggests this will help Joe clean up his act.[7]

The army captain is delighted by Joe's kind-hearted nature and his skill with horses. Joe and other soldiers are dispatched to Mexico, and fight in the Battle of Carrizal.[7] The soldiers behave heroically against the superior firing power of Mexican Gatling guns. Joe saves the life of the white commanding officer of the 10th Cavalry Regiment.[3]

Reading of Joe's heroism in the newspaper, Clara dismisses Jimmie's criticisms of Joe. She welcomes Joe home "with open arms".[7]

Filming and distribution

The battle scene had a cast of 300, including Mexican cowboys and former troopers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry. This was a major undertaking for the young film industry of the time.[3]

The film was initially successful; the Lincoln Motion Picture Company created multiple print runs of the film to meet demand. Like most early Black documentaries or docudrama, the film had no means of distribution after its initial run and was largely forgotten.[3]

Rediscovery

The Trooper of Troop K was considered to be a wholly lost film until 2022, when a 15-second clip was rediscovered embedded within another film by the same company, By Right of Birth (1921). The rediscovery was possible because a film scholar identified Noble Johnson's face in a brief iris shot inset as a special effect in one corner of the film. Johnson had left the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in 1918, indicating the clip was older than 1921.[8][7]

References
  1. Michaels, Camille R. (July 15, 2017). African Americans in Film: Issues of Race in Hollywood. Greenhaven Publishing LLC. ISBN 9781534560819 – via Google Books.
  2. Michaels, Camille R. (15 July 2017). African Americans in Film: Issues of Race in Hollywood. ISBN 9781534560819.
  3. Klotman, Phyllis Rauch; Cutler, Janet K. (1999). Struggles for Representation: African American Documentary Film and Video. ISBN 0253213479.
  4. Marez, Curtis (November 19, 2019). University Babylon: Film and Race Politics on Campus. Univ of California Press. ISBN 9780520304574 – via Google Books.
  5. "A Trooper of Troop K (1917) Technical Specifications". IMDB.
  6. Field, Allyson Nadia (October 4, 2022). O'Dell, Cary (ed.). "Looking (and Looking Again) at Black Film History". Library of Congress.
  7. "The Trooper of Troop K: Rediscovering Footage from the Earliest Black Film Production Company". Black Film Center & Archive Blog. Indiana University Bloomington. October 4, 2022.
  8. Lee, Tori (Dec 6, 2022). "Piece of earliest known Black-produced film found hiding in plain sight". UChicago News.


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