King Vidor - Hallelujah! (1929)

In 1929, the art of sound film was taking it's first clumsy baby steps. While many early talkies were simply filmed recordings of stage plays, King Vidor's HALLELUJAH is a cinematic marvel, shot on location in an energetic documentary style. It's a tale of temptation, and the restoration of faith amongst African-Americans in the rural south. In the film, we follow Zeke, a simple black cotton-picker living and working blissfully with his religious family. He ventures into the big city to sell the fruits of his and his community’s labor- a truckload of cotton. It's there, with his newfound fistful of moullah, he meets up with Chick (Nina Mae McKinney), a fast-talking she demon of a city-slicker who uses her charms to scam him out of his entire bankroll. A fight breaks out, and Zeke winds up accidentally killing his younger brother. Zeke discovers religion, and becomes a preacher. All is going well until Chick comes back into his life.
With it's fast pace, brilliant use of locations (King Vidor shot the film in Arkansas and Tennessee), local unprofessional talent, and sometimes- expressionistic sound, King Vidor works wonders with his first sound film. His silent films, such as THE BIG PARADE and the superb THE CROWD proved he was a master visual storyteller. (Vidor was also instrumental in solving a fellow film director's murder during the silent era!) HALLELUJAH ends with a beautifully- shot, eerie, moonlit chase through the southern swamps.


File Name .........................................: Hallelujah.avi
File Size (in bytes) ............................: 1,439,651,840 bytes
Runtime ............................................: 1:39:17

Video Codec ...................................: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Frame Size ......................................: 640x472 (AR: 1.356)
FPS .................................................: 23.976
Video Bitrate ...................................: 1732 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ...................................: 0.239 bpp
B-VOP, N-VOP, QPel, GMC.............: [B-VOP], [], [], []

Audio Codec ...................................: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Sample Rate ...................................: 48000 Hz
Audio Bitrate ...................................: 192 kb/s [1 channel(s)] CBR
No. of audio streams .......................: 1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019959/

Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese (idx/sub)

My rip