21 October: Black Moon

 

Macklin: The voodoo drums are going. They started when the natives found out that you were coming back. For the first time in years, there was a sacrifice that night.

Juanita: Well, you don't mean to tell me that my coming has anything to do with the voodoo drums?

Today we’re going to set sail for the Caribbean and take part in some dark rituals for today’s Cinematic Void 31 Days of Voidoween movie challenge: “Voodoo.” Didn’t we already do this, you may well ask? Sure, for “Val Lewton” day we walked with a zombie, but today things are gonna get a tad more freaky, because we’re going back to Pre-Code Hollywood, that moment in time before the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code. Today, we’re talking 1934’s Black Moon.

As a child, Juanita (Dorothy Burgess) escaped after her parents were killed during a voodoo ritual on a Caribbean island. Now that she is all grown up, Juanita has a burning desire to return to the island. Her husband Stephen (Jack Holt) doesn’t realize the danger, so he sends Juanita, their daughter Nancy (Cora Sue Collins), and Nancy’s nursemaid Gail (Fay Wray) to stay with Juanita’s uncle on the island. Once she arrives, the island’s black residents all hail her as their voodoo goddess. Soon, she begins taking part in their rituals...something she had done as a child. Anyone who tries to stand against her is killed. Before long, Juanita’s own daughter is in danger of becoming a sacrifice for Juanita’s voodoo death cult.

I stumbled upon this movie thanks to Michael H. Price’s Forgotten Horrors books and podcast. Price and George E. Turner began the Forgotten Horrors series of books in the 1970s to document the works of Poverty Row studios in the 1920s and 1930s. After Turner’s death, Price continued the work with writer John Wooley, and together the two started the Forgotten Horrors podcast. If you have an interest in off-beat cinema, older movies that you’ve only heard mention of, black-and-white horror from smaller studios, then Forgotten Horrors is for you.

Black Moon was made at Columbia, which was one of the larger studios operating in Hollywood in the 1930s. Jack Holt was one of their bigger stars. Fay Wray had starred in a string of genre pictures by the time Black Moon came out - The Most Dangerous Game, Mystery of the Wax Museum, and King Kong just to name a few. Dorothy Burgess, too, was an old hand at quickie Hollywood studio productions when she starred in Black Moon.

Black Moon has beautiful black-and-white photography which gives the plantation sets and jungle settings a creepy feel. Because this is a Pre-Code picture (just...strict enforcement of the Hays Code began in July of 1934...Black Moon was filmed in April/May and released in June), Black Moon presents its subjects in the (slightly) lurid light that would not be allowed in later films. Gail, for instance, tells Stephen that the man she is in love with is already married, but she won’t live with him in sin...unless he asks her to!

That said, Black Moon is not a politically correct film by a long shot. The people of color in the film are not depicted in a very positive manner. It should be pointed out, however, that their portrayal isn’t anything out of the ordinary for the time period. Not that that makes it any better. With that in mind, proceed at your own risk. I think there is enough outside of the ugly racism to warrant a look.