The Exile

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A race film with the title The Exile. It consists of three (3) reels of 16mm black-and-white acetate film with optical sound. The film tells the tale of Jean Baptiste (Stanley Morrell), a man living in Chicago, and Edith Duval (Eunice Brooks). Edith, who worked as a servant for a white family, inherits their mansion after they flee their neighborhood because of an influx of African Americans. Jean and Eunice eventually grow at odds with each other because of their different personalities and the two break off their relationship. Jean relocates to South Dakota where he reinvents himself as a rancher and falls in love with Agnes Steward (Nora Newsome), a white woman. Believing that their relationship is doomed because of anti-miscegenation hostility, Jean moves back to Chicago where he reconnects with Edith and the two make plans to get married. One evening, Edith's ex-boyfriend breaks into her room and threatens to kill himself.

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