Spine 370: Paul Robeson - Icon

We have another boxset for October, but a marked change from our September Monsters and Madmen set. Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist is an exploration of singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson’s career from his start in the 20’s to his essential house arrest in the early 50’s when the US Government revoked his passport and refused to let him leave the country over his politics. Criterion delivers the films to us in themed pairs on each Spine number, so we’ll be dealing with them in that division. First up is Paul Robeson: Icon containing Dudley Murphy’s 1933 adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play The Emperor Jones, which Robeson had been starring in on stage since 1925, and Saul J. Turell’s 1979 retrospective documentary Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist.