The Spider's Web (1926 film)

The Spider's Web is a 1926 American film directed by Oscar Micheaux which stars Evelyn Preer.^[1] It was remade in 1932 as The Girl from Chicago.^[2]

The Spider's Web
Directed by	Oscar Micheaux
Starring	Evelyn Preer
Country	United States

The film is about a beautiful young woman from Harlem in New York City who travels to a small town in Mississippi where she receives unwelcome courting.^[3] She returns to Harlem.^[4][5]

Plot

Norma Shepard is a teenage Black girl from Harlem in New York City. While visiting her aunt in Mississippi, she is crudely and sexually propositioned by Ballinger, the son of a local white plantation owner. Ballinger later attempts to rape Norma at the aunt's home. Elmer Harris, a Black employee of the U.S. Department of Justice, is investigating illegal slavery in the area. Norma tells him about the attack, and he arrests Ballinger.

Norma convinces her aunt to move to Harlem. The aunt loses her life savings playing the numbers racket. With her last dollar, the aunt manages to pick a winning number. When she tries to collect her winnings from Martinez, the racketeer, she finds him dead. She takes her winnings from his safe.

The aunt is arrested for Martinez's murder. Elmer Harris, now working undercover in Harlem investigating the rackets, proves the aunt's innocence by discovering that wealthy Madame Boley killed her lover Martinez. Elmer and Norma wed.

Cast

• Evelyn Preer as Norma Shepard
• Lorenzo McLane as Elmer Harris
• Edward Thompson
• Grace Smyth^[6] as Madame Boley^[7]
• Marshall Rodgers
• Henrietta Loveless
• Billy Gulfport
• Dorothy Treadwell^[8]
• Zaidee Jackson^{[citation needed]}

References

1. Musser, Charles; Gaines, Jane Marie; Bowser, Pearl (March 28, 2016). Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253021557 – via Google Books.
2. "The Girl from Chicago". The Criterion Channel.
3. "Spider's Web, the (1926) - 01". The New York Age. January 8, 1927. p. 6.
4. Stewart, Jacqueline Najuma (March 28, 2005). Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520936409 – via Google Books.
5. "The Crisis". April 1979.
6. "Entertainment-Jan-29-1927-1816312 | NewspaperArchive®".
7. Musser, Charles; Gaines, Jane Marie; Bowser, Pearl (March 28, 2016). Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era. ISBN 9780253021557.
8. Institute, American Film (1997). Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960. ISBN 9780520209640.