NORMAN, Richard E. (director); MAYO, Stella (starring)

Original Film Pressbook: Regeneration

Jacksonville, FL: Norman Film Manufacturing Company, [1923]. Folio (56cm); single sheet of 22" x 28" stock, offset printed in 3 colors and folded vertically at center to create 4pp; illus. Some negligible creasing; a few short, closed tears to extremities; Near Fine.

Original pressbook for the 1923 film, directed by Richard E. Norman. Norman, a white man, is best remembered for producing eight feature films between 1920-1928. In 1920, he purchased the bankrupt Eagle Film Studios complex in the East Arlington area of Jacksonville, FL, which would become the home of Norman Film Manufacturing Co. - one of the most sophisticated production facilities run by a "colored" film company. He found success making silent pictures, never making the cross-over into the "talkies," and handled the distribution of his films throughout the South. Regeneration was a South Seas adventure film, touted as "the first colored picture with a real sea story and a sex theme." Filmed with an all-colored cast, starring Stella Mayo, and produced with considerable expense at the time; the film notably featured a two-masted schooner that was set ablaze 7 miles out at sea. A scarce, attractive piece of African-American film ephemera. OCLC notes a single pressbook for this film held in the Richard E. Norman Collection at the Lilly Library.

Price: $450.00

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