Frank Peregrini’s The Scar of Shame
Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 7pm
Light Industry, 361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn

Presented with Alfreda’s Cinema

The Scar of Shame, Frank Peregrini, 1929, 16mm, 85 mins
Live accompaniment by Kamau Amu Patton

“Got you in a close-up, professor,” says the student, as he frames Seret Scott in Losing Ground (1982). “You look just like Pearl McCormack in Scar of Shame, Philadelphia Colored Players, 1927.” The earlier work, one of the most celebrated race films of the silent era, had been revived in the 1970s, and here its independent ambitions seem to have proved inspiring, at a moment when a new generation of Black filmmakers were discovering their own ways of working beyond the confines of Hollywood. The scenario concerns a doomed love—between pianist Alvin (Harry Henderson, veteran of many Oscar Micheaux productions) and washerwoman Louise (theater star Lucia Lynn Moses, stunning in her sole screen credit). The pair marry after Alvin rescues Louise from the abuses of her drunken father (William E. Pettus), but she eventually falls prey to the promises of a showbiz racketeer (Norman Johnstone).

An elegant study of class conflict across Black society, shot with a nod to German Expressionism, The Scar of Shame was the crowning achievement of the Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, an atypically integrated studio composed of Black performers, Italian-American filmmakers, and Black and Jewish producers. Distinguished from other race films by their production values, Colored Players’ movies were so popular in the 1920s that Micheaux considered them his main rivals. The Scar of Shame was enthusiastically embraced by the Black press of the time. The Amsterdam News called it a “gorgeous production with a vital story” that “sets a new standard of excellence for picture features with colored talent;” the Baltimore Afro-American hailed it as simply “one of the greatest race pictures ever produced.”

Like the genre’s very name suggests, no melodrama would be complete without music, and this evening we’ll be presenting The Scar of Shame with a live score by sound artist Kamau Amu Patton, newly composed for the occasion.

Tickets - Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.

Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served, except for members subscribed at $8/month or more, who may reserve a seat by emailing information@lightindustry.org at least two hours prior to showtime. Box office opens at 6:30pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.

Light Industry is supported by our members and, in part, by the Mellon Foundation through the Coalition of Small Arts New York. Public assistance is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.