• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
This is a promotional poster from the 1941 film “The Blood of Jesus.” (OSV News photo/Spencer Williams Production)

Media Notebook: ‘The Blood of Jesus’

February 23, 2023
By John Mulderig
OSV News
Filed Under: Movie & Television Reviews

NEW YORK (OSV News) — During the Jim Crow era, a genre of movies developed that were geared toward African American audiences and known as race films. Since Black audiences seldom saw themselves portrayed in mainstream pictures — and usually only as servants or comically stereotyped figures when they were — these productions provided a popular alternative.

Among the filmmakers who had a significant impact on this market was actor-turned-auteur Spencer Williams Jr. (1893-1969). One of the two highpoints of Williams’ career, according to a consensus of critics and scholars, is his 1941 religiously-themed drama “The Blood of Jesus.”

Since the movie is in the public domain, it can be viewed for free online at the Internet Archive. Go to: https://archive.org/details/blood_of_jesus. It’s also available – as part of a double feature with director Oscar Micheaux’s 1939 race film “Lying Lips” – on a DVD released last fall by Alpha Video.

What Williams lacked in budget, he made up for in imagination. His setting shifts between this world and the next as he tells the story of a recently baptized churchgoer (Cathryn Caviness) whose loving but unbelieving husband (Williams) accidentally shoots her with his hunting rifle.

As the goodhearted rustic hovers between life and death, Satan (James “Jas.” B. Jones) and an angel (Rogenia Goldthwaite) contend for her soul. Lucifer provides his prey with a slick guide (Frank H. McClennan) to the vaguely decadent allurements of urban life, and it’s not long before this newly-minted nightclub patron is imperiled by her companion’s scheming.

As Williams elaborates on the Southern Baptist suspicion of the Big City – presumably against the backdrop of the Great Migration that was continuing to draw millions of African Americans northward – the shifting moods of the hour-long action are set by a series of spirituals. Interestingly, much of the iconography is Catholic: crucifixes and images of the Sacred Heart.

Simple, straightforward and even naive, “The Blood of Jesus” is also, at times, dreamy and ethereal.

Williams would later be the subject of some controversy as the result of his starring role as Andrew H. Brown on CBS-TV’s “The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show” in the early 1950s. The importance and value of his work on the big screen, by contrast, is uncontested. Thus, in 1991, “The Blood of Jesus” became the first race movie to be included in the U.S. National Film Registry.

John Mulderig is media reviewer for OSV News. Follow him on Twitter @JohnMulderig1.

Read More Movie & Television Reviews

Movie Review: ‘Silent Night’

A selection of Christmas movies

New Jersey priest’s devotion to saint helps bring her life to the big screen

Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon

Movie Review: ‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’

Movie Review: ‘The Holdovers’

Copyright © 2023 OSV News

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

John Mulderig

John Mulderig is media reviewer for OSV News.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Quirk of calendar requires two obligations for Masses at Christmas time
  • Wearing a rosary can make a Latino a target for police, historian says
  • Powerful masterpiece: Beloved rendition of Handel’s Messiah coming to Baltimore Basilica
  • Univ. of Notre Dame names Father Robert Dowd its new president
  • Movie Review: ‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’

| Christmas events |

| CURRENT EDITION |

| 2023 Attorney General’s Report |

Judge praises dialogue between archdiocese and creditors’ attorneys in reorganization

Radio Interview: Archdiocese of Baltimore and Chapter 11

‘The most equitable path for all victim-survivors’ – Archdiocese of Baltimore files for Chapter 11 reorganization

Compensating all claims of abuse: Archdiocese considers Chapter 11 reorganization

Archbishop Lori says Baltimore archdiocese will consider reorganization to address potential claims

| Crisis in Israel |

Message of Peace Light, now in U.S., seen as more urgent amid Israel-Hamas war

Fighting in Holy Land, bombing in Philippines prompt prayers from ailing Pope

Israel-Hamas truce has been extended by two days; more hostages scheduled to be released

Biden celebrates release of some Hamas hostages, says it is ‘only a start’

For ‘Red Week,’ parish remembers suffering of Jews and Muslims along with persecuted Christians

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

| Movie & Television Reviews |

Movie Review: ‘Silent Night’

A selection of Christmas movies

New Jersey priest’s devotion to saint helps bring her life to the big screen

Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon

Movie Review: ‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’

| En español |

El Papa sugiere mantener el corazón vigilante en Adviento por medio de la caridad y la confesión

‘La pobreza es un escándalo’, dice el Papa, y los cristianos deben destinar sus dones a la caridad

Las guerras en Gaza, Ucrania, ‘matan’ el futuro de los niños, dice el Papa

Festival Hispano Familiar celebra vocaciones y valores familiares

Cruzar el desierto para llegar a una tierra de esperanza: la historia de una familia migrante

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Catholic High crowned again as Baltimore’s best girls private school by magazine
  • Proposed referendum for Irish Constitution calls for widening the definition of family
  • Pope, Council of Cardinals discussed the role of women in the church
  • Archbishop exhorts Advent vigilance as national shrine’s Holy Door sealed
  • Holy Spirit inspires creativity, simplicity in evangelization, pope says
  • Tuberville ends hold on hundreds of military promotions over Pentagon abortion policy
  • Can one Mass satisfy my Sunday and Christmas obligation in 2023?
  • Movie Review: ‘Silent Night’
  • Pray the news, pray the media, and imbue the culture with Christ

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED