David Starkman

Colored Players Film Corporation

In 1926 David Starkman helped to found the Colored Players Film Corporation with Sherman H. “Uncle Dud” Dudley, a veteran of vaudevillian and race movies. Dudley and Starkman shared a common vision in which there was a black Hollywood free of the traditional black stereotypes; and so with Starkman’s theatre in Philadelphia as a base of operations the Colored Players Film Corporation was born with Dudley named as the President of the company and Starkman in charge of the management, finances, and operation of the production company. The Colored Players Film Corporation took the morals and ethics of Starkman and Dudley to heart as all their films attempt to show the African American as a successful person able to achieve middle class status and step away from the typical stereotypes and minstrel films of the time period. While only Dudley and the cast comprised the African Americans of the Colored Players Film Corporation, the collaboration between both the white and black staff was an integral part of the company. More importantly the interracial cooperation found in the company allowed for the success of the film The Scar of Shame.

The Scar of Shame

The peak of the Colored Players Film Corporation’s success came when it produced the film The Scar of Shame in 1929, just one year before the closure of the production company. Starkman produced the film and wrote it with the cooperation of the black staff in order to understand the social caste among African Americans living within the same neighborhood. The film primarily focuses on two protagonists each from different levels of society. The main protagonist must choose whether or not to be with a woman from a lower caste of society or leave her in order to keep with the plan his social status has pre-planned for him.

The White Micheaux?

Sometimes called the “Oscar Micheaux” of the white independent film producers, Starkman helped to produce and write The Scar of Shame a famous film that the Colored Players Film Corporation produced and released before it was eventually absorbed and merged with another film production company. Starkman would eventually go bankrupt due to the competition with other independent film companies and lack of revenue brought in by the film corporation’s productions.

Downfall

Although Starkman worked for his audience in order to enhance their experience in the theatre, Starkman did not always have the money to fund his films. Starkman eventually sold his theatre and then turned his wife’s inheritance into cash; he intimidated local Philadelphia lawyers and merchants for capital. Starkman would ultimately write scripts carry the “release prints to out of town play dates and [count] the house in person” (Smith 54). During production of his last film, The Scar of Shame, Starkman began to offer his own car for the film, put forward his sister’s house as a shooting location and decorated the set with his own furniture. In the end, the financial pressure got the best of Starkman and after releasing The Scar of Shame Starkman could no longer compete due to the debut of sound film, ruining him and similar independent film companies. In a last effort to save the Colored Players Film Corporation Starkman merged the company with one of his partner’s, Sherman Dudley, but unfortunately the company never took off.