Body and Soul (1925, Oscar Micheaux) (Patreon)

52/100

Feels like a truly damaging percentage of this film got cut and has been lost. Paul Robeson (in his screen debut) plays a dual role, appearing mostly as a con man and eventual rapist in priestly disguise, but also very briefly showing up as the con man's identical twin brother, who's engaged to our heroine. The way this plays out is not just confusing—it took me half the film to realize that those are separate characters, as there's no onscreen reference to their relationship; it just looks for a while as if the bad guy removes his phony white collar when with Isabelle—but downright discombobulating. Their identical DNA plays no part in the story (as it exists today, at least), such that you could swap in a different actor, twice Robeson's age, for either of the roles and that wouldn't require a single change in dialogue or behavior. Nor does Isabelle even seem aware that the man who rapes her looks exactly like the man she loves, much less does she question why that should be. It's just not commented upon! Truly bizarre, and I can only assume, given that the film reportedly went from nine reels to five, that all of the scenes addressing this aspect were removed for some unknown reason. What remains, while nonsensical, still has its share of affecting moments, with Mercedes Gilbert in particular navigating a credible journey from cruelly clueless to empathetic (though that pathos then gets negated but an it-was-all-a-dream ending that I'd bet was hokey even a century ago). Like all of Micheaux's surviving films, it's also of great historical interest, of course...but this one seems like a potentially terrific melodrama, irrespective of race, that unfortunately got butchered to a degree that its narrative just couldn't withstand.