most of whom had to start from scratch and learn all aspects of film production and distribution. In addition, they had no existing reservoir of experienced film actors and movie technicians to draw upon (Sampson 82).
The technical quality of these films started to show improvement in the 1930s and 1940s, and black audiences by then were becoming acquainted with the various black screen personalities. The films had very little chance of showing a profit if they cost more than $15,000 to make, given the limited nature of their distribution. This cost factor limited the number of actors who could be used and the number of sets that could be built. The films were usually shot in less than a week, with the action often combined to two or three sets (Sampson 82-83).
The black audience of the era was simply ignored by the white film industry and related businesses. Black films and producers in the silent era were completely ignored by the white newspapers and magazines covering the film business. In the late 1930s and 1940s, some of the black films were reviewed, almost always negatively, reflecting concerns both about technical quality and sociological issues. A review of Gang War in Variety in 1940 notes first that the technical quality was poor and then states with reference to the use of newspaper headlines and montages in the film,
It seems a particularly bad technique in view of a prospective audience which is notoriously slow in reading and uninclined to it, while many Negroes in the South are actually unable to read (Sampson 86).
Sampson notes that the themes and story content of the silent era differed greatly from what would develop in the 1930s and 1940s. In the first period, producers made serious attempts to counter the images presented by white filmmakers, and the films tended to reflect the life style and social customs of the black bourgeoisie of the period. The central characters were nearly always sh...