Overview

This book reveals a long-lost treasure trove of silent cinema. At the same time as Hollywood was starting, a film industry in Southern Africa was surging ahead in production, distribution and exhibition. Films made in African studios and locations brought in experienced technicians and actors from New York and London, as well as employing many Africans – whose talents were remarked upon in overseas reviews. Nearly sixty movies are reconstructed with illustrations, plot synopses and quotations from reviews – including the precursor of the 1960s movie Zulu, the original King Solomon’s Mines and The Blue Lagoon, with pioneer African film stars A.Z. Goba and Msoga Mwana as the black revolutionary in Prester John. Neil Parsons was professor of history at the University of Botswana and has taught and researched at universities in Zambia, Swaziland, South Africa, the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. He is the author of King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queen, and, with Alois Mlambo, A History of Southern Africa.

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9781485309550

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`A history which has long needed to be told. It throws new light on developments in film production during the Great War period and immediately after.' Kevin Brownlow. `A splendid addition to the burgeoning literature on colonial cinema and Black world cultural studies.' Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike. `Neil Parsons's reputation as a sharp-eyed analyst of Central and Southern Africa is based on his enviable knack of finding neglected topics and then fashioning them into works that simply light up cultural history everywhere.' Charles van Onselen

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