HALLELUJAH (1929) Trailer | |Nostalgic Flick

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Hallelujah is a 1929 American pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical directed by King Vidor, and starring Daniel L. Haynes and Nina Mae McKinney.

Filmed in Tennessee and Arkansas and chronicling the troubled quest of a sharecropper, Zeke Johnson (Haynes), and his relationship with the seductive Chick (McKinney), Hallelujah was one of the first films with an all-African American cast produced by a major studio. (Although frequently touted as Hollywood's first all-black cast musical, that distinction more properly belongs to Hearts in Dixie, which premiered several months earlier.) It was intended for a general audience and was considered so risky a venture by MGM that they required King Vidor to invest his own salary in the production. Vidor expressed an interest in "showing the Southern Negro as he is" and attempted to present a relatively non-stereotyped view of African-American life.

Hallelujah was King Vidor's first sound film, and combined sound recorded on location and sound recorded post-production in Hollywood. King Vidor was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for the film.

In 2008, Hallelujah was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.

The film contains two scenes of "trucking": a contemporary dance craze where the participant makes movements backward and forward, but with no actual change of position, while moving the arms like a piston on a locomotive wheel.

Hallelujah entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.