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(FILM—WILLIAMS, SPENCER.)
Blood of Jesus.
Monochrome two sheet
“press kit” with stills etc from the film; small folio, printed on rectos only; some darkening.
Dallas, etc., circa 1941
[1,500/2,500]
TWO RARE PROMOTIONAL SHEETS FOR THE LEGENDARY WRITER
,
PRODUCER
,
DIRECTOR
,
AND ACTOR
,
SPENCER WILLIAMS
.
Blood of Jesus was the second film created by Spencer Williams,
shot on a $5000 budget. Williams acted in the film himself and used amateur talent, mostly drawn
from the parishioners of Reverend R.L. Robinson, the pastor in the film, whose Heavenly Choir was
actually the choir from his church. “Blood of Jesus” was revolutionary in many respects, using existing
footage from a 1911 Italian film called l’Inferno to show people ascending into heaven; and the use of
non-actors to play ordinary people. Long thought to be lost, copies of the film turned up in a ware-
house in Texas in the mid 1980’s, with Dave Kehr of The New York Times calling the film
“magnificent” and J. Hoberman of The Village Voice stating it is “a masterpiece of folk cinema that
has scarcely lost its power to astonish.” Filmmaker Julie Dash cited the baptismal sequence in The
Blood of Jesus as the inspiration for a similar scene from her 1991 feature film Daughters of the
Dust. In 1991, The Blood of Jesus became the first “race film” to be added to the U.S. National
Film Registry.