The Lincoln Motion Picture Company was an American film production company founded in 1916 by Noble and George Johnson. Noble Johnson was president of the company, the secretary was actor Clarence A. Brooks. Dr. James T. Smith was treasurer, and Dudley A. Brooks was assistant secretary. The company is known as the first producer of race movies. Established in Omaha, Nebraska, the company relocated to Los Angeles the following year. It remained in operation until 1923, closing shortly after announcing a final project, The Heart of a Negro.
In the first two decades of the 20th century African American audiences were ignored by film studios. Because African American audiences were ignored, there was a high demand for films geared to catering to black audiences. Thus bringing about the need for black motion picture production companies.
The Lincoln Motion Picture Company is considered the first all-black movie production company, building a reputation for making films that showcased African American talent in the film industry. The company made and distributed only five films. These films were limited to African American audiences in churches, schools, and “Colored Only” theaters, despite the Johnson brothers wanting a wider audience.
Standing 6’2″ at 215 pounds, Noble Johnson’s impressive physique and handsome features made him in demand as a character actor and bit player. In the silent era he assayed a wide variety of characters of different races in a plethora of films, primarily serials, westerns and adventure movies. While Johnson was cast as black in many films, he also played Native American and Latino parts and “exotic” characters such as Arabians or even a devil in hell in Dante’s Inferno (1924).
The old orthochromatic film stock of the early days was less discriminating about a person’s color, as were black and white stocks in general, permitting some African-American actors a break, as their “color” was washed out or less obvious when photographed in black and white. As late as the early 1960s, there were very few African-American members of the Screen Actors Guild. Since there was a lack of opportunity for them as black performers, they were confined mostly to race films until the 1960s.
The founding of Lincoln Motion Picture Company
Noble was good friends with fellow actor Lon Chaney, his schoolmate in Colorado, and was also an entrepreneur, founding, in 1916, his own studio to produce what would be called “race films“, movies made for the African-American audience, which was ignored by the “mainstream” film industry. The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, in existence until 1923, was an all-black company, and the first to produce movies portraying African-Americans as real people instead of as racist caricatures (Johnson was followed into the race film business by Oscar Micheaux and others). Johnson, who served as president of the company and was its primary asset as a star actor, helped support the studio by acting in other companies’ productions such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916), and investing his pay from those films in Lincoln.
Lincoln’s first picture was The Realization of a Negro’s Ambition (1916). For four years Johnson managed to keep Lincoln going, primarily through his extraordinary commitment to African-American filmmaking. However, he reluctantly resigned as president in 1920, as he no longer could continue his double business life, maintaining a demanding career in Hollywood films while trying to run a studio. Unfortunately production expenses and low sales halted future films to be made and distributed. Noble left his position as president to become an actor at Universal Pictures, with Dr. James T. Smith taking over the position. The Lincoln Motion Picture Company lasted until 1923.
Unfortunately The Realization of a Negro’s Ambition is lost. The premise of the movie was: A junior Negro oil engineer rescues a white woman and earns the chance to succeed in the oil business.
By Right of Birth (1921) [Only Surviving Works From The Lincoln Motion Picture Company]
Juanita Cooper is the adopted daughter of Frank Cooper and Geraldine Cooper. Geraldine backs Manuel Romero, an unscrupulous Mexican-American stockbroker, on a trip to Oklahoma to secure oil leases from Freedmen allottees, who are ignorant of the real value of their holding. Romero focuses on an allotment belonging to Helen, a missing allottee. He forges Helen’s name to a lease, while searching for her. Geraldine discovers that Juanita is the missing Helene. After witnessing deceit and death, Juanita is reunited with her real mother and comes into the fortune and happiness which is hers.