“The Czar of Black Hollywood” is a 6 episode documentary about Oscar Micheaux. The first episode, “Mama’s Black Baby Boy,” chronicles the early years of Oscar’s life in southern Illinois to his eventual move to Chicago. Oscar always wanted more out of life and you will see him go through many obstacles to become America’s preeminent and most prolific black filmmaker. He has directed or produced 22 silent movies and 15 talking movies in his career. The documentary is narrated by William Bell and a great lesson on the life of Oscar Micheaux.

Overall, I thought this was a well written documentary that had a couple of flaws. I thought they did a great job discussing Oscar’s humble early routes and the struggles he had to deal with early on in the early 1900’s. However, I felt they went off on tangents several times and would have been happier if they kept the focus on Oscar’s life. It was very informative, but felt the narrating was a bit dry and lacked energy and enthusiasm. However, I did enjoy the music and the imagery as well as the occasional political cartoons. To sum everything up, I had very mixed feelings about this documentary.

I think it is great that “The Czar of Black Hollywood” is all about Oscar Micheaux, but hope the future episodes have a better and clearer focus on the main subject. With a little more work, I would say this documentary is perfect for any history class or anyone interested in learning about Oscar’s life, but in general it is not at that point yet. Also, I found the first episode to be a bit too short and wanted to learn more, but felt they cut the episode too soon. However, I am now intrigued to check out the other episodes and hope they were better than this one. For those reasons, I am giving this episode a “B-.”