The Dungeon (1922 film)

Contemporary newspaper advertisement for the film.

The Dungeon is a 1922 race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. The film focuses on an African American woman who is coerced into marrying a corrupt would-be politician. When she discovers that her husband has conspired to support segregationist policies in exchange for support by white political power brokers, she is imprisoned in a secret dungeon where her husband had murdered his previous wives.^[1]

Micheaux was criticized by D. Ireland Thomas, a columnist with the Chicago Defender, for his casting of light-skinned African Americans. Thomas questioned whether Micheaux was "relying on his name alone to tell the public that it is a race production; or maybe he is after booking it in white theaters.”^[2]

No print of the film is known to exist and it is presumed to be a lost film.^[3]

Cast

• William Fountaine
• Shingzie Howard
• J. Kenneth Goodman
• William Crowell
• Earle Browne Cook
• Blanche Thompson^[4]

References

1. “Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960” by Alan Gevinson, University of California Press, 1997 ISBN 0-520-20964-8
2. “Overview – The Dungeon,” AllMovie/New York Times
3. “Progressive Silent Film List: The Dungeon,”SilentEra.com
4. IMDB entry

External links

• The Dungeon at the Internet Movie Database