Jericho (1937, Thornton Freeland) (Patreon)

35/100

Filmmakers of the '30s really understood that if you were gonna cast Paul Robeson in your movie, might as well find reasons to have him repeatedly break into song, whether or not it's a musical. Indeed, the most stirring moment in this very poky military adventure sees Robeson's escaped fugitive, who's made a new life for himself somewhere in North Africa, hear a melody from his past and proceed to arduously climb a nearby peak so that he can belt the song out at full volume. Despite taking that precaution, he's inexplicably dumb enough to let a British newsreel team hang out in his village, thereby revealing his location to the officer who inadvertently facilitated his escape and did five years in jail; in theory, Jericho (also known as Dark Sands) should be about their tumultuous relationship, but the movie keeps forgetting about Captain Mack for long stretches, forcing it to rush through any moral reckoning when the two men finally meet again. Don't know a thing about Freeland, whose sole relatively well-known directing credit is the early Astaire/Rogers film Flying Down to Rio, but this is the sort of hackneyed picture in which someone gets shot as he's saying "Hey, that was a close sha—" and then expires between the final two letters of "I'm O.K." As always, Robeson commands the screen without much visible effort, at one point even singing with soul-stirring passion while lying on his bunk, seemingly relaxed. Happy to keep watching these forgotten mediocrities just for the pleasure of his company.