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The Green Pastures Photos

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Movie Info

A preacher in a small African-American church in Louisiana tells his Sunday school class stories from the Bible as if the characters were part of a local fish fry. He starts with the creation of the world by God, known as "De Lawd" (Rex Ingram), and tells how God went on to create heaven, which is just like their farmland, and then created man and woman, followed by their fall and finally the coming of Jesus Christ. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Genre:

drama, comedy
Original Language:

English
Director:

William Keighley
Producer:

Henry Blanke
Release Date (Streaming):

Sep 3, 2012
Runtime:

1h 33m
Production Co:

Warner Brothers/Seven Arts

Cast & Crew

Rex Ingram
Adam, De Lawd, Hezdrel

Oscar Polk
Gabriel

Eddie Anderson
Noah

Frank Wilson
Moses, Sexton

George H. Reed
Mr. Deshee, Aaron

Alexander Gleaves
Archangel

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for The Green Pastures

All Critics (18) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (4)

[Rex Ingram] doubles ably as Adam and the Prophet Hezdrel.

October 18, 2019 | Full Review…

TIME Staff
TIME Magazine
The Green Pastures is a simple, enchanting, audience-captivating all-Negro cinematic fable.

March 26, 2009 | Full Review…

Variety Staff
Variety
Constructed as a series of Sunday School Bible stories linked by spirituals, it has enormous charm in its folklorish fancies... What is offensive is the way in which the depths of plangent suffering that inspired the spirituals are totally ignored.

June 24, 2006 | Full Review…

Tom Milne
Time Out
[It's] hard not to like the simple and gratifying theology of [Pastures] as much as anything about it. It has concreteness and gives one a nostalgic feeling that it ought to be true and that if it isn't we are all, somehow, obscurely the worst for it.

May 21, 2003 | Full Review…

B.R. Crisler
New York Times
Weren't the children of the Sunday school scene adorable? Weren't the Spirituals inspiring? And above all wasn't Rex Ingram -- divine?

December 10, 2020 | Full Review…

Ruth A. Duckett
New York Age
This is all a lot of tommyrot, as the only thing it is keeping with is the white man's idea and desire to see the poor black man in rags, squalor, and privation.

July 15, 2020 | Full Review…

Ralph Matthews
Baltimore Afro-American
It's not easy to make a "divine comedy"... This miracle occurs nonethless in The Green Pastures. [Full review in Spanish]

October 18, 2019 | Full Review…

Aurelio Pego
Cine-Mundial
Green Pastures does not portray the idea of heaven of "thousands of quaint Negroes in the South.'' It doesn't portray the idea of Negroes anywhere, or of any class.

October 18, 2019 | Full Review…

Leroy S. Hart
California Eagle
There have been, in the past, a few minor films about Negro life. But none has ever approached the pretentious dimensions of Green Pastures, none has given the Negro actor so great and dignified an opportunity as he has [in this film].

October 18, 2019 | Full Review…

Meyer Levin (Patterson Murphy)
Esquire Magazine
The great folk-classic of the stage, finely transferred to the screen.

August 8, 2019 | Full Review…

Ann Ross
Maclean's Magazine
Recreates various Sunday school stories from the Old Testament that's told in a spirited manner in the lingo of the rural southern Negro.

January 15, 2007 | Rating: B- | Full Review…

Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
It's all ridiculous, of course, but in an open-hearted, naïve sort of way it's an oddly captivating achievement.

February 16, 2006 | Full Review…

Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid