Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941) User Reviews (10)

Not the greatest, but not the worse!

[msladysoul · 6/10 · 19 January 2006]

Not a bad movie at all but certainly not the greatest but it is watchable. With most of these Black Cinema films, you have to watch a few times before you get it. Instead of being called, Murder on Lenox Ave, it should of been called, Harlem Blues or something.

The most interesting of the cast are the pretty actresses who all give convincing performances. First, Dene Larry who plays Ola is quite convincing in her role as the good girl who disobeys her father for the first time but it is a good decision. She's sweet but speaks her mind when its time to do so. She's a natural as an actress, giving feeling, personality, and charm in everything, she has the right gestures and expressions whether happy or sad.

Cristola Williams plays Rosalia, the woman who loves a man who doesn't love her. She plays her role like Ann Harding or Helen Twelvetrees would, always the sad woman who can't helping loving a bad man. Cristola is a gorgeous lady who was also a fine actress of stage and screen, she appeared in quite a few Black Cinema films. She was also a lovely singer. Cristola Williams and Dene Larry are two wonderful black actresses, or Negro actresses I should say, who should be given recognition. Just because they didn't go to Hollywood or cross over their not looked at as important but they are because they contribued to Black movie-making a great deal, by making their own films to prove they had what it took, no stereotype, no labels, just playing various people from all walks of life and having the power to create their own images. Even Blacks in Hollywood don't have that freedom today.

The three sisters, or show biz chicks who live upstairs are wonderful together, their like a comedy threesome, their sassy and sexy but good girls. Their names are never said, but their listed in the credits at the end as Emily Santos, Flo Lee and Wahneta or Wahnetta San. They were also in Sunday Sinners, which was done the year before this movie and involved the same cast.

Alec Lovejoy is always good to see. Edna Mae Harris, a familiar face in Black Cinema is a singer and the other woman. She sings two charming songs and looks gorgeous. She resembles Lena Horne in voice and looks in this movie. I like her sweet instead of hot. Mamie Smith is always a natural, so you can't expect anything bad from her. Norman Astwood, handsome talented actor is one of the unsung black actors who we don't hear about just because he didn't go to Hollywood or cross over but his contributions are evident. He was a popular actor in his time. He was too white looking for Hollywood but through Black Cinema, he got his chance. He's kind of like a Clark Gable in a way.

Great blues singer Mamie Smith always is a delight in all the movies she's done. Alberta Perkins was a true actress and it shows, she was in quite a few films and on stage. She was a powerful woman with a powerful presence and powerful voice with a wonderful sense of humor. Mamie Smith, Alberta Perkins, Henrietta Loveless, Laura Bowman, and Mercedes Gilbert were wonderful actresses who got to show their various talents in Black Cinema films a.k.a Race Films, Colored Cast or Black cast films but they had what it took for mainstream Hollywood and Broadway. They had what it took to cross over but whites being prejudice and partial back then had a limit to how many Blacks they would let be stars and that position was filled by Ethel Waters, the token Black, who got a chance to cross over and be successful in Hollywood and Broadway, since she was getting all the breaks there was no room for others. It's always been a limit to blacks being successful mainstream, especially towards actresses even in Hollywood today only a few make it to the top. Anyways, they all are true talents and their contributions and talents is undeniable. The movie has a lot of different stories going on, a father who wants his daughter to marry a man she doesn't love, the father doesn't know but the guy is out for no good, he really wants the trust fund so that's the only reason why he'll marry his daughter, the guy has a nightclub singer he's chasing, and another young lady who lives in the same building who's hopelessly in love with him and wants him to marry her right away but he treats her bad after he got what he wanted, after watching the movie a few times I found the reason why she kills herself is because she's pregnant with his child and is ashame for having sex outside of marriage (remember, this is the 1940's folks), so when the guy doesn't want want to marry her and she commits suicide by jumping out of the apartment building window, the father's daughter wants to marry another man and go down south to teach but the father thinks he's crooked, the father wants to help Harlem be a better place and drive the crooked people out, there's fighting and shooting but there is surprisingly no real happy ending. Everything is fast paced. It may take a few times watching the movie to get everything going on. A lot of things are going on without real explanation, like for example, the girl who is pregnant out of wedlock, there's no mention of it but it's obvious.

This doesn't seem like an amateur cast, most everyone in the cast has been in movies before and most were in show business. I would like to have seen a little bit more in this movie. It seems everything is crammed at the end.

not much of a film, but Mamie Smith is fantastic!

[django-1 · 6/10 · 23 January 2005]

First of all, this IS NOT a murder mystery, despite the title. There is a murder committed, but it happens in the last minute or two of the film, and it's no mystery who did it as it's shown on screen. Black-cast films of the 30s and 40s are usually interesting to watch, even though they are usually on a technical level about one or two rungs below PRC or Monogram at their most threadbare. This one is no exception. There's some good swing music (and some bad syrupy numbers from a young lady singer), some good performances by Mamie Smith and whoever played the bartender (the scene where he makes a "brown bomber" drink is hilarious!), and interesting plot elements involving the small merchants of Harlem banding together against exploitation. However, the film is not well-paced, too much time is spent talking rather than acting, and some of the younger actors are a bit wooden. The great blues-vaudeville vocalist Mamie Smith, the true Mother of the Blues, is fantastic in her few songs (the one on the street when she is selling her pies, near the beginning of the film, is moving and bluesy) and in her acting. How great it would have been to see her performing on stage! Much of the crew and the cast of this film made another one called Sunday SINNERS the year before, which also features some exciting scenes with Mamie Smith. Speaking of PRC, director Arthur Dreifuss actually moved UP to PRC after making this film, directing some entertaining things such as THE PAYOFF with Lee Tracy and BOSS OF BIG TOWN with John Litel, and BABY FACE MORGAN with Richard Cromwell and Robert Armstrong. He then moved up to Columbia's B unit and did two good entries in the Boston Blackie series. He wound up working for Sam Katzman in the sixties doing Riot on Sunset Strip, The Love-Ins, and the Young Runaways. Co-screenwriter Vincent Valentini also scripted such exploitation classics as SEX MADNESS (a personal favorite of mine) and BOY WHAT A GIRL, starring Tim "Kingfish" Moore. MURDER ON LENOX AVENUE doesn't seem to be going anywhere, although the supporting characters are colorful (the hunchback assistant to the crooked Mr. Marshall) and Black-cast films are of historical and cultural worth. Mamie Smith fans, however, will not want to miss her in her final years--she was still in fine form and had a power and maturity to her performance. Since (to my knowledge) we have no actual performance footage of Ms. Smith, a film like this one is the best we can do today.

Some great singing but a sometimes tedious plot.

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 27 January 2014]

"Murder on Lenox Avenue" (1941) is a Clayton's murder mystery. In other words, it's the murder mystery you have when you're not having a murder mystery. Not only is there no mystery in the script, there's no murder either. Fortunately, there is a Lenox Avenue, so I guess two out of four correct words in the title is not bad for what was intended as a Poverty Row exploitation picture. The movie's poster promises an "all star colored cast" led by Mamie Smith, Alec Lovejoy, Norman Astwood, Gus Smith, Alberta Perkins and Edna Mae Harris. However, the main characters in the movie are actually played by Gus Smith as Pa Wilkins and Ernie Ransom as Pa's ward, Jim Bracton. The aforesaid poster depicts a beautiful young woman lying on the pavement with a dagger in her heart, although there's no dagger in the screenplay and the episode to which the title vaguely refers is just a minor sub-plot to the main story which involves Pa Wilkins and his daughter (played by Dene Larry) with the Better Business League. The crooked leader of the League, played by Norman Astwood, doesn't intend to take his dismissal lying down. Fortunately, this often tedious plot is interspersed with some lively singing by the likes of Edna Mae Harris, Mamie Smith, Alberta Perkins, Wahneta San, Sidney Easton and Alec Lovejoy.

Murder on Lenox Avenue has good music and not much else

[tavm · 2/10 · 8 February 2011]

In watching movies involving people of color in chronological order for Black History Month, we're in 1941 with this "race film" featuring many musical moments from the likes of Mamie Smith and Edna Mae Harris who I previously enjoyed in The Green Pastures and Lying Lips. There's also a plot involving a Pa Wilkins (Augustus Smith who's a Jacksonville, FL native which is a city I once lived in) who wants his daughter to marry a certain man but she's in love with someone else. There's also a subplot about some kind of corruption but really the only enjoyable parts of this movie are the music and occasionally some comedy though I didn't think there was much that was funny. So on that note, Murder on Lenox Avenue is worth a look for the music and not much else.

"It's fighting for the future, children..."

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 13 October 2023]

A sad fact about movies in the USA, is that in many places, black patrons were not allowed in the same movie theaters...or were forced to sit in 'colored only' sections of theaters. Because of this, many urban theaters began opening up specifically for black audiences. But because these were mostly second-rate theaters, they couldn't afford many of the first-run movies. And, in some other cases, black Americans just wanted to see films featuring people like themselves. So this led to a small industry which produced movies exclusively for these theaters, though the budgets were minuscule for these 'race films' compared to the Hollywood movies of the day. And, for the most part, the films they made are pretty dreadful...well intended...but still very dreadful artistically speaking. One such film is "Murder on Lennox Avenue".

Wet clothes.

Despite the title, the murder takes a VERY long time to occur...only in the last minute of the movie. Until then, the plot concerns control of a business association for black businesses in Harlem. Some want control so they can exploit their fellow citizens, while others really want to make the organization a positive force in the community.

As I said above, most of these films, including this one, are pretty dreadful...mostly because the folks making the movies didn't have access to better writers, actors, directors and budgets. The only very positive thing I noticed in this film was the music. Otherwise, the acting seemed amateurish and the direction seemed lacking (at best). Not 100% terrible...but pretty bad.

Despite saying all this, I am very glad this and other race films still exist, as they are important historical and cultural documents. After all, how could we remember this cottage industry unless we watch and preserve these pictures?

Rather Confusing Race Film

[Michael_Elliott · 15 February 2017]

Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

I'd be the biggest liar in the world if I told you that I knew what this movie was about. There seems to be at least four different story lines going on as well as various musical numbers. One subplot deals with a couple men fighting after who knows what. There's another subplot about a girl torn between two men and of course her father wants her to marry the one she doesn't love. Then there's some union propaganda going on to close things out.

MURDER ON LENOX AVENUE has the title and the poster of some sort of crime film but the crime doesn't happen until the closing seconds so I'm pretty sure people in 1941 were probably just as confused by this film as those watching it today would be. Basically this is another extremely low-budget race film that doesn't have too much going for it outside the fact that it might appeal to those who are interested in watching these types of movies.

The biggest problem with this one is that it has all the bad things that most of these movies have. That's the fact that there simply wasn't any sort of budget and very little talent involved. Not only that but you've also got a story-line that makes very little sense and there's no question that it's all over the place in regards to what it's trying to be about. There are a couple interesting music numbers and I'd also say it was interesting seeing the style of clothing that was being worn but outside of that there's not much here.

Definitely not Cabin in the Sky

[kyivguy · 4/10 · 8 December 2023]

Considering that it was made in 1941 without any major studio backing, don't expect very much in the way of professional Hollywood production standards. It would appear that many of the cast members had never been in front of a movie camera. On several occasions members of the cast can be seen breaking the "fourth wall" by looking into the camera. It also looks like several of the cast are reading from cue cards off camera. What was a point of interest was the dialog that called for a 'rallying around the race' as a point of pride. Not one of better "race movies" but worth the time to understand what it was like to be a black actor in 1941.

The direction is abysmal with little continuity of the plot line.

Dull character drama with a heavy-handed message

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 12 February 2017]

Another film badly misadvertised on Amazon Prime. The cover and description make it sound like an everyday murder mystery but in fact it's a piece of character drama. There is a murder but it takes place in the last moments of the film and there's no mystery surrounding it.

What MURDER ON LENOX AVENUE really turns out to be is an early blaxploitation movie. I had no idea that these were being made back in the 1930s but the film is pretty interesting in that respect. The cast members give solid performances every bit as good as white actors did in their respective B-pictures, but the rest of this one is pretty dull. There's some music, some singing, and bit of heavy-handed political posturing as the characters have to band together to tackle some exploitative businessmen. It really isn't as interesting as it sounds.

A Superior Movie

[boblipton · 7/10 · 10 August 2019]

The Better Business League throws out crooked leader Norman Astwood. He plots his vengeance. The League works at recruiting Gus Smith to lead them. He has his own problems. He wants his daughter, Dene Larry to marry two-timing Ernie Ransom, and to pursue her career as a teacher in Harlem. She is in love with Earl Sydnor, and wishes to go with him to teach down South.

This film -- they were called "race films" in this period -- is a good one. Although I am often bothered by the poor line readings in these movies, director Arthur Dreifuss deals effectively with this problem, by having a lot of the lines delivered as speeches, or while the characters are angry, motivating the actors to put more fire into their words. In addition, the musical numbers in this movie -- a common method of filling out such works -- are very well performed. The comedy is well done and naturalistic, an unidentified bass player struggling to carry his heavy instrument upstairs, and Alec Lovejoy puzzling over how to make a mixed drink he doesn't know how to, stand out.

Race movies usually played only in Blacks-Only theaters in this period, and had to be produced with the low box-office totals of that in mind. They were hampered by low production budgets, which revealed themselves in bad set decoration and the type of performance that revealed untrained and under-rehearsed actors. This movie had to deal with the same financial restrictions, but largely overcomes them to produce an entertaining and passionate movie.

Better than most "race films", as they were known; has limitations, but well worth the watch...

[mmipyle · 6/10 · 19 June 2021]

"Murder on Lenox Avenue" (1941) is a Harlem based "race film" starring Mamie Smith, Alec Lovejoy, Norman Astwood, Augustus Smith, Alberta Perkins, Edna Mae Harris, Sidney Easton, and many others. This tries to do too many things for its own good, but compared to many of this ilk, this is actually pretty good. Acting is severely stage-bound; so is cinematography, which honestly at times is stagnant. Opening scene is a nice montage, with odd angles, etc., but photography for the most part is claustrophobic and uncreative. Story regards the black race and white grifting and grafting, the rise of black business in a black community, but mostly this is about a black man who promises women his love and forfeits his promises over and over, leading to one pregnancy and suicide and eventually...well, that would be a spoiler.

Fascinating from an historical view. Not the best film ever made, but certainly better than a lot of others of its type that were made almost strictly for black theaters in black neighborhoods and starring nearly an all-black cast and made on the cheap-cheap. Music here alone would make this worthwhile. It's performed off-the-cuff, actually raw in some numbers with mistakes and all, though the jazz numbers with Smith and one or two others are quite okay, if not smooth. Musical numbers pervade the film. For the record, though I'm not sure it's really accurate, Mamie Smith has been listed as "the first recorded American female black blues artist." In 1920 she recorded "Crazy Blues".