Uncle Tom’s Cabin

2225. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1914-USA). With SAM LUCAS. Based on the novel by HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. A heartrending version of the time-honored American novel, which “is a story of an exotic race whose ancestors…were brought to the New World by heartless traders and sold into slavery.” The setting is the antebellum South. White-haired Uncle Tom is the devoted slave of the kindly plantation owner George Selby. He is a special favorite of Selby’s young son, George Jr. Selby is facing a financial crisis. He has no choice but to sell Tom and the offspring of the freedom-craving mulatto slave George Harris to a notorious slave trader named Haley. So opens the story. What follows is a classic drama of brutality and bravery, tenderness and heartbreak. As it continues, you will meet all of Stowe’s characters. Among the most memorable are two young girls, one white (the sweet but ill-fated Eva St. Clair) and the other black (the mischievous Topsy). Let us not forget the harsh and brutal Simon Legree, whose very name has come to be synonymous with unabashed cruelty. This film is of historical note in that it supposedly was the first ever made with an integrated cast in which a black actor had the starring role. He is Sam Lucas, who earlier had played Uncle Tom in a Broadway adaptation of the novel. “Silent” film with music score. 52 minutes. “Silent” Melodrama