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| Norman Johnstone, Harry Henderson, Ann Kennedy, Lucia Lynn Moses in The Scar of Shame |
The Scar of Shame is usually categorized as a "race" movie -- one made for exclusively African-American audiences -- but it's really more about caste than about race. As sociologists point out, any group of people set aside for some overriding characteristic -- age, skin color, language, religion, sexual orientation, you name it -- tends to subdivide, to establish its own hierarchies, cliques, clans, privileged or subjugated groups. In its melodramatic way, The Scar of Shame is a keen-edged portrayal of black Americans under segregation, and the more remarkable because it was produced, written, and directed by white men. But the acceptance of the film by the audiences for which it was made suggests that it may have embodied some home truths. It's mostly a well-made film, though one in need of a stronger editor -- none is credited -- and eventually it has a misfire of an ending. The story centers on the fortunes of Alvin Hillyard (Harry Henderson), a young musician with ambitions to prove himself a serious (i.e., not jazz) composer, or as another character puts it in an intertitle, to become "the leading composer of our race." He rescues a young woman, Louise Howard (Lucia Lynn Moses), from being abused by her alcoholic stepfather, Spike (William E. Pettus), and marries her, mainly because she's pretty and he feels sorry for her. Unfortunately, he can't bring himself to tell his mother that he's wed someone not of their social class, and whenever he goes to visit her he leaves Louise at home. Meanwhile, the crooked Eddie Blake (Norman Johnstone) wants Louise to become a star attraction in the club he plans to open, and engineers a showdown with Alvin in which shots are fired and Louise is wounded. Having discovered that Alvin is ashamed of her lack of social status, Louise blames him and goes to work for Eddie. Alvin goes to prison, escapes, starts a new life under an assumed name, and falls in love with the pretty and socially prominent Alice Hathaway (Pearl McCormack). Meanwhile, Eddie has made a success of his club and Louise has a new admirer -- none other than Ralph Hathaway (Lawrence Chenault), Alice's father. It all ends with Louise first trying to blackmail Alvin but having a change of heart. She kills herself and exonerates Alvin in her suicide note, leaving Hathaway to moralize in a wordy intertitle, opining that if Louise had "had the proper training, if she had been taught the finer things in life, the higher aims, the higher hopes, she would not be lying cold in death! -- Oh! our people have much to learn!" Which is, of course, not the point at all: If Alvin hadn't been such a snob, such a "dicty sap," as Eddie calls him (the touches of African-American slang in the intertitles are delicious), Louise wouldn't have had to suffer. It would have been nice if the makers of The Scar of Shame had been more attentive to the ironies of their story and not so quick to slap on a wrong-headed moral about the need of the black community to pull itself up by its bootstraps. Still, it's a useful window onto the mindset of an era.
