Body and Soul
A convict escapes to a Southern town and passes himself off as a reverend, giving him the perfect cover to swindle the townspeople and corrupt an innocent young woman.
From the archive
A minister is malevolent and sinister behind his righteous facade. He consorts with, and later extorts from, the owner of a gambling house, and betrays an honest girl, eventually driving them both to ruin. Body and Soul, directed by the legendary African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, is a direct critique of the power of the cloth, casting Robeson in dual roles as a jackleg preacher and a well-meaning inventor.
Why this is free to watch
Body and Soul (1925) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. No signup, no payment and no advertising interrupts playback. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Oscar Micheaux
- Starring
- Paul Robeson, Mercedes Gilbert, Julia Theresa Russell, Marshall Rogers, Lawrence Chenault, Chester A. Alexander, Walter Henry Cornick, Lillian Johnson
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