The Exile (1931 film)

Fleeing back to Chicago to escape the relationship, which he believes is doomed, the former teetotaler Baptiste returns to Edith's club, her liquor and her charms.

They plan to marry, but her former lover, an Ethiopian named Jango, appears, sneaks into Edith's room and complains of how she has ruined him.

In 2008, film historian Richard Koszarski wrote: "Although some critics later described The Exile 'a disaster,' its technical quality is certainly no worse than Mother’s Boy (1929) and Howdy Broadway (1929), or other low-budget eastern productions of the period.

Indeed, Micheaux’s sober analysis of racial distinction with and without the black community marks The Exile as far more ambitious and interesting than most other independent films of the day.

If the film was the critical and commercial failure some historians suggest, then its fate may be seen as prefiguring the negative response to D. W. Griffith’s The Struggle (1931), shot in the Bronx a few months later.