For His Mother's Sake is a 1922 American silent film, starring heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson. It was a Blackburn-Velde Pictures production distributed by Fidelity Pictures Company.[1] The film opened in January 1922 at the New Douglas Theater at Lexington Avenue and 142nd Street in Harlem.[2] It is believed there was only one five reel print of the movie, due to the studio owners seizing the negative when the film's producers failed to pay their bills.[2]

For His Mother's Sake
StarringJack Johnson
Production
company
Blackburn-Velde Pictures
Distributed byFidelity Pictures Company
Release date
  • January 1922 (1922-01)
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent

Plot

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Johnson's character in the film flees to Mexico after taking the blame for a crime committed by his brother.[3] It has been described as a "prodigal son" story. Johnson has been described as demonstrating, in this film, in As the World Rolls On, and through his prizefighting, "to a generation of African-American male youth that athletics was one of the few ways out of the ghetto or off the sharecropper's farm."[4]

Mattie Wilkes portrayed Johnson's mother in the sentimental melodrama about a man taking the blame for his brother's crime.[5]

Banned

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The Ohio State Bureau of Motion Pictures banned the film because of Johnson's criminal record.[3][6]

Cast

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References

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  1. ^ a b "For His Mother's Sake". www.tcm.com.
  2. ^ a b Ward, Geoffrey C. (2004). Unforgivable blackness : the rise and fall of Jack Johnson. New York : A.A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-41532-6.
  3. ^ a b c Vogan, Travis (16 October 2020). The Boxing Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9781978801370.
  4. ^ Butters, Gerald R. (2002). Black Manhood on the Silent Screen. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1197-3.
  5. ^ "For His Mother's Sake". TVGuide.com.
  6. ^ "Contemporary Criticisms". Camera. May 6, 1922. p. 15.
  7. ^ "For His Mother's Sake". www.tcm.com.