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Robeson’s initial British film, however, was arguably his greatest celluloid disappointment. He had agreed to appear in Zoltan Korda’s SANDERS OF THE RIVER (’35) out of his interest in African culture. ”You know, this film is a very exciting thing for me,” he explained. “For the first time since I began acting, I feel that I’ve found my place in the world, that there’s something out of my own culture which I can express and perhaps help to preserve.” Producer Alexander Korda sent a 15-man camera crew to central Africa. 60,000 feet of on location footage was shot, 2,000 of which was incorporated info the final print.

SANDERS OF THE RIVER was originally supposed to dignify Africa and present a positive image of its natives. Yet the result, in which Robeson portrayed Bosambo, a tribal king and right hand man to Sanders, the civilized British commissioner who benevolently rules his backward charges, was a promulgation of colonial rule. Robeson charged hanky panky in the editing room. Scenes in which he did not appear were allegedly rewritten without his knowledge; his character, though lordly enough to rule his own tribe, was clearly subservient to Sanders and the other whites.

SANDERS OF THE RIVER was blasted in the Black newspapers. Andre Sennwald, in his New York “Times” review went so far as to describe Robeson’s character as a “savage.” An irate Robeson stormed out of a special screening in protest. “I committed a faux pas,” he declared 13 years later. “I did it in the name of art …I hate the picture.”

Robeson demanded final control over his scenes when queried by Universal to portray Captain Joe in SHOW BOAT (’36), the second of three filmed versions of the musical. The studio refused, but the actor decided to appear anyway, thinking his work in that film might perhaps strengthen his bargaining position on future projects. While his singing is majestic – he offers a moving rendition of “Ol’ Man River” – his character is insignificant, no more than the goldbricking husband of maid-cook Hattie McDaniel. “Ah Still Suits Me,” composed especially for the film, is even a defense of Joe’s laziness.

Robeson then returned to England.

Before he made his next film, SONG OF FREEDOM (’36), he explained why he preferred working abroad. “I want to disillusion the world of the idea that the Negro is either a stupid fellow, as the Hollywood films show him, or a superstitious savage under the spell of witch doctors. In America, the color question is too acute, and prejudice is rampant. A serious Negro artist stands little chance there.”

In SONG OF FREEDOM, Robeson portrayed John Zinga, a dockworker-turned-concert singer who discovers he is heir to the throne of an African tribe. Robeson wrote that the film was the first to “give a true picture of many aspects of the life of a colored man in the west… the film shows him as a real man, with problems to be solved, difficulties to be overcome.”

SONG OF FREEDOM was successful enough to inspire talk of a sequel – FREEDOM ISLAND – which was never made. But Robeson’s Zinga is very much the product of a white society, and the film is still an homage to the sun-never-sets-on-British-soil mentality.

In each of his succeeding British films, Robeson was hopeful that his characters would be humanistic, three-dimensional black men. While they were not shuffling sambos, they nonetheless remained in the shadows of the Great White Hunter. He appeared in BIG FELLA (’37) as Banjo, a Marseilles dock-worker who returns a runaway boy to his British parents. In KING SOLOMON’S MINES (’37), he was Umbopa, the exiled chief who aids Cedric Hardwicke in his search for the legendary diamond mines. In JERICHO (’37), he played Jericho Jackson, an American army deserter who escapes to the Sahara and becomes a Bedouin ruler. Robeson, in the latter film, sings “Mama’s Little Baby Loves Shortenin’ Bread.” Bosley Crowther, writing in the New York Times, described JERICHO (which was released in the United States as Dark Sands) as “futile,” and a “ridiculous masquerade.”

After JERICHO, Robeson decided to retire from filmmaking. ”I thought I could do something for the Negro race in the films,” he said, “show the truth about them and about other people too. I used to do my part and go away feeling satisfied – thought everything was O.K. Well, it wasn’t. The industry is not prepared to permit me to portray the life or express the living interests, hopes, and aspirations of the struggling people from whom I come… You bet they will never let me play a part in a film in which the Negro is on top.”

The actor refused film roles for almost two years, but returned to the cinema when the Ealing Studios offered him the lead in PROUD VALLEY (’40). He starred in the film as David Goliath, an American toiling as a coal miner in a Welsh village who sacrifices his life to his white brothers during a mining disaster. Cinematically the film is barely more than adequate, and although his performance as Brutus Jones is far more striking, he referred to PROUD VALLEY as “the one film I could be proud of having played in.”

Robeson returned to the United States in ’39, when war broke out abroad. He was to appear in one more feature, the disastrous TALES OF MANHATTAN (’42). In this all-star epic about the fortunes of a tailcoat passed from hand to hand, the actor was saddled with the demeaning character of Luke, a backwoods Southern farmer who discovers a wad of dollars which had been dropped from an airplane into his cotton field. He and Ethel Waters, in the dialect of the uneducated “Tom, thank de Lawd in hebben” for sending the money. Robeson accepted the role because his character suggests that the money be used to buy land for the economic benefit of all. But Luke is no more than a “plantation hallelujah shouter,” a phrase Robeson once used when denouncing Hollywood for stereotyping his race. He even volunteered to picket the film when it opened in New York.

Luke was the last character Robeson portrayed on film. TALES OF MANHATTAN remains a shameful final curtain to the actor’s filmography.

The zenith of Robeson’s career, however, was to be his most spectacular stage triumph. Not until ’43 was the climate in the United States right for a black Othello to kiss a white Desdemona on stage. Robeson, with Uta Hagen as Desdemona and Jose Ferrer as lago, opened on Broadway in Othello at the Shubert Theatre and the critics raved. Typical was the “Newsweek” analysis: “Robeson brings to Othello a voice and physical presence that few contemporary actors can match.” Added Ward Morehouse, in the New York “Sun”: “(Robeson) gave a portrayal of great resonance, vitality, and fluency, and one surpassing any Othello within my experience. He brings majesty and power to the role, as well as pathos and terror.” A short kicker in the New York “Times” reported: “Not for several seasons has a play received the tumultuous applause that was accorded last night’s presentation of Shakespeare’s Othello, starring Paul Robeson… At least ten curtain calls were demanded. The audience mostly wanted Mr. Robeson…” “Life” magazine wrote: “…Robeson received one of the most prolonged and wildest ovations in the history of the New York theatre. “Newsweek” accurately summed up the evening as a “dramatic peak in a dramatic career.” Othello ran for 296 performances, a record then for Shakespeare on Broadway. A tour throughout the country followed; Robeson again repeated the role in a Tony Richardson production at Stratford-on-Avon in ‘59.

Following that triumph, however, the bottom came out of Robeson’s career and his life. Robeson had visited the Soviet Union in ’34, and was impressed by what he perceived to be a lack of racial prejudice. Two years later, he sang for the anti-Fascist troops in Spain. During WWII, he became a vocal opponent of racism and oppression. He picketed the White House, helped raise funds for striking workers, refused to perform before segregated audiences and urged Congress to outlaw the “whites only” policy of professional baseball.

The social and political climate during the war years allowed for such behavior. But with the advent of the Cold War and the hysteria of Joe McCarthy, those who had dared to venture opinions which were even remotely to the left of center were considered traitors to their country. In ’49, Robeson made a controversial statement at the World Peace Congress in Paris: “It is unthinkable that American Negroes could go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country (USSR) which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind.” His outspoken admiration for the Soviet Union and the principles of ”scientific socialism,” which culminated in his acceptance of the Stalin Peace Prize in ’52, inflamed public opinion – and eventually destroyed his career.

Robeson was called before a committee of the California State Legislature in ’46, where he testified that he was not a member of the Communist Party. From then on, however, he refused to answer questions on principle. He was summoned before House and Senate subcommittees, where he refused to confirm or deny the “Are-you-or-have-you-ever-been” queries. In ’49, he was scheduled to perform at a music festival in Peekskill, New York. His appearance provoked rioting, in which over 100 concertgoers were injured. A year later, the State Department revoked his passport and refused to issue another unless he sign an oath affirming that he was not a Communist and that he would not give political speeches abroad. He refused, and became a virtual prisoner in America.

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