If you can possibly see The Song Of Freedom by all means do so. It's a chance to see Paul Robeson sing and give a fine acting performance in a story set partially in Africa. It's a mini-version of the famous American mini-series Roots. Paul in fact carries his roots with him both in a song that's been with him since birth and a medallion handed down to him from an ancestor who was sold into slavery and who was king of his people. That's all dealt with in a short prologue.
Fast forward to 1936 and Robeson is working on the London docks and also provides a bit of entertainment for his fellow stevedores. Impresario Esme Percy discovers him and turns Robeson into a concert/opera singer. But one night a backstage visitor tells Robeson that this melody which he has engraved in his soul is the chief's song from a particular tribe in Africa. Robeson and wife Elisabeth Welch go to that part of Africa where he attempts to reassert his royal prerogatives.
As a colonizing power in Africa, the British picked up knowledge about the place that Americans only gleaned from Edgar Rice Burroughs and other such pulp fiction authors. And in these years prior to World War II did film a lot of stories on location there such as The Four Feathers in the Sudan. Song Of Freedom was shot on location in Sierra Leone for the African part of the story. It's light years more real than anything you would get from Hollywood.
Incidentally the gambit of the 'lost song' may very well have been lifted from the Victor Herbert operetta Naughty Marietta. No matter, it's well done and provides Robeson with a number.
Elisabeth Welch who was a fine singer in her own right gets to do Sleepy Rivers. I wish she had been given more to do.
Seeing both Paul Robeson and a glimpse of the real Africa is a chance no one should pass up.
Fast forward to 1936 and Robeson is working on the London docks and also provides a bit of entertainment for his fellow stevedores. Impresario Esme Percy discovers him and turns Robeson into a concert/opera singer. But one night a backstage visitor tells Robeson that this melody which he has engraved in his soul is the chief's song from a particular tribe in Africa. Robeson and wife Elisabeth Welch go to that part of Africa where he attempts to reassert his royal prerogatives.
As a colonizing power in Africa, the British picked up knowledge about the place that Americans only gleaned from Edgar Rice Burroughs and other such pulp fiction authors. And in these years prior to World War II did film a lot of stories on location there such as The Four Feathers in the Sudan. Song Of Freedom was shot on location in Sierra Leone for the African part of the story. It's light years more real than anything you would get from Hollywood.
Incidentally the gambit of the 'lost song' may very well have been lifted from the Victor Herbert operetta Naughty Marietta. No matter, it's well done and provides Robeson with a number.
Elisabeth Welch who was a fine singer in her own right gets to do Sleepy Rivers. I wish she had been given more to do.
Seeing both Paul Robeson and a glimpse of the real Africa is a chance no one should pass up.