Directed by James Gist and Eloyce Gist • 1930 • United States
HELL-BOUND TRAIN is arguably the most significant rediscovery in Pioneers of African American Cinema. The film is the work of self-taught filmmakers James and Eloyce Gist, African American evangelists who employed cinema as a tool for their traveling ministry. Their surreal visual allegories were screened in churches and meeting halls, accompanied by a sermon and the passing of a collection plate. Rather than having a linear story, the film is instead a catalog of iniquity, a car-by-car dramatization of the sins of the Jazz Age (including gambling, dancing, alcohol, and the mistreatment of animals), presided over by a horned devil and culminating in a colossal derailment (a model train tossed into a bonfire). Admittedly, the production values are minimal—shot with handheld 16 mm equipment using natural light, sans audio—but the surreality of it all makes for a compelling viewing experience, and shows that renegade, visionary filmmakers can be found in the most unexpected places. HELL-BOUND TRAIN is presented here with a score by Dr. Samuel Waymon, best known to cineastes as having provided the moody soundtrack for Bill Gunn’s influential 1973 film GANJA AND HESS. It is believed that HELL-BOUND TRAIN was filmed prior to James’s marriage to Eloyce, so it is unclear how much involvement she had in the making of the film. But she may have had a hand in the editing and was certainly engaged in all aspects of their subsequent work.
Film historian S. Torriano Berry discusses the works of James and Eloyce Gist (featured in “Pioneers of African American Cinema”), which he’s studied for twenty years.