Emperor Jones

In the key role of his career, Paul Robeson repeats his powerful stage portrayal of Brutus Jones, a railroad porter who becomes the ruler of a remote Caribbean island, a story loosely patterned after the life of Haitian emperor Henri Christophe. The underlying 1920 Eugene O?Neill play was one of the first to portray the black man as an individual rather than as a stereotype. Jones deals with whites on his own terms - sometimes even contemptuously, as in his dialogue with the white trader superbly played by Dudley Digges. Jones? eventual downfall comes as the result of his own fears, rather than any other cause. As in other sound films starring the acclaimed baritone, Robeson has two songs. ?Let Me Fly? and ?Water Boy?. This version, never before available on video, has been newly restored by the Library of Congress using elements from several archives and collectors and includes a color sequence original to the film.