| Murder in Harlem | |
| Director: | Oscar Micheaux Clarence Williams (cabaret sequence) (uncredited) |
| Producer: | Alice B. Russell (producer) Oscar Micheaux (producer) (uncredited) |
| Starring: | See below |
| Cinematography: | Charles Levine |
| Runtime: | 102 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Murder in Harlem (also released as Lem Hawkins Confession and Brand of Cain) is a 1935 American race film written, produced and directed by Oscar Micheaux, who also appears in the film. It is a remake of his 1921 silent film The Gunsaulus Mystery.
Basing the works on the 1913 trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan,[1] Micheaux used the detective genre to introduce different voices and conflicting accounts by his characters. In July 2021, the film was shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
An African-American man is framed of the murder of a white woman, but a white man is responsible. Author-turned-attorney Henry Glory is hired by the accused man's sister to defend him. Glory pieces the crime together, and the white killer is revealed. The film is loosely based on the real life case of Leo Frank. However, it changes the details of the real case, which was highly prejudicial against Frank due to his being a Jewish man in Georgia. Unlike in the film, Frank's guilt is often viewed with great skepticism due to him never receiving a fair trial.[3] [4]