Part of the Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 exhibit at the world-reknown DIA.

Eleven P.M.
USA, 1928, directed by Richard D. Maurice
Sunday, 2:00pm
DIA Lecture Hall
5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit

Silent film director and railway labor organizer Richard D. Maurice was born in Cuba in 1893, migrated to the US in 1903, and settled in Detroit where he worked as a tailor. In July 1920 he founded the Maurice Film Company at 184 High Street, and produced two feature films released a decade apart. Eleven P.M., his surviving feature, is a surreal melodrama in which a poor violinist named Sundaisy (Maurice) tries to protect an orphan girl (Wanda Maurice) who is victimized by petty criminals.

Many Black filmmakers during the silent era adopted stylistic conventions of Victorian theater, but Maurice’s innovative use of location filming, extreme camera angles, fantasy imagery, and kaleidoscopic special effects closely resemble avant-garde European films of the 1920s. Eleven P.M. will be presented with a live musical score, composed and performed by pianist Alvin Waddles.

See it, not only for the innovative Maurice’s direction and performance but for actor H. Marion Williams’ performance as the absolutely despicable Clyde Stewart!