Song of Freedom

Song of Freedom is a 1936 British musical drama film directed by J. Elder Wills and starring Paul Robeson, Elisabeth Welch, Esme Percy and Robert Adams. It was written by Ingram D'Abbes and Fenn Hill Sherie based on a story by Claude Wallace and Dorothy Holloway. It is an early feature produced by Hammer Film Productions.

John Zinga is a black dockworker in England with a great bass-baritone singing voice. He is discovered by an opera impresario and becomes an international star. Yet he feels alienated from his African past, and out of place in England. By chance, he is informed that an ancestral medallion he wears proves his lineage to African kings, and he leaves fame and fortune behind to take his rightful place as royalty. Reunited with his people, he plans to improve their lives by combining Western technology with the best of African tradition.

Although unsuccessful in the US, it was notably chosen in 1950 to open the convention of Ghana's Convention People's Party. The ceremonies were presided over by future first Prime Minister of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, Robeson's friend from his London years.

The first part of the film's story takes place in the year 1700 on an island called Casanga off the west coast of Africa. The island has not yet attracted the attention of the slave traders on the mainland, but its people are suffering fierce oppression under their hereditary queen Zinga - a tyrant, despot, and mistress of cruelty.

What first appears on screen is a grassland landscape in which men of an African tribe are patrolling, with haystacks and rugged hills in the background. Into this scene there comes a bare-chested young African, as strong as a bull, looking around him cautiously.

Next we see the brutal Queen Zinga, wearing a leopard-skin dress, a straw hat, and a shell necklace on which hangs a medallion, a symbol of kingship. Laughing vigorously, she is teasing a man tied on a wooden column, who is supposed to be the king of Casanga. Zinga takes off the necklace and puts it on the man's neck, taunting him as a "one-second king" and trying to kill him straight away. Suddenly, a girl, apparently frustrated by the cruelty of the planned execution, rushes towards the queen, grabs the medallion, and runs off. Astonished, the queen orders her soldiers to catch the fleeing girl and to recover the medallion. However, with the help of the strong young man seen at the beginning of the film, she is able to escape from the soldiers and the two get onto a raft to row it to the mainland. Once there, they turn to a white slave-trader for help. The slaver happily accepts them into his camp and adds them to his chain. Then, along with all the other blacks the slaver has acquired, the couple is filled with anxiety and fear. Sent to England by boat to begin their new life, they are not sure what is in store for them.

Time runs on and historical events unfold, such as the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807. But not until 1838 did the slaves themselves become free from the oppressing situation and the social status for blacks start to improve. Chains and handcuffs are destroyed, ropes and whips are burned, and a seemingly brand new story begins, centring on John Zinga, a black dockworker in England with a great baritone singing voice. His singing impresses all his colleagues on the wharf. Children in his apartment block fall asleep soundly when he sings, but he himself doesn't realize what use he can make use of his voice. In fact, what keeps hovering in his mind is the eagerness to discover his true origins and to help his own people, although he doesn't know who they are. Zinga always considers himself out of place in London and is often blamed by his wife for being ‘not satisfied’, but never does he change his mind. Finally, one day an opera impresario hears him singing and tries his best to find out about him. And in a pub, while Zinga is being invited by the owner to sing the song "Lonely Road", Gabriel Donizetti, the famous impresario, comes quietly in from the door and sits in the audience, watching, listening, and enjoying the beautiful song. "No more docker, but a great career" Donizetti promises Zinga, who is shocked and surprised since he thinks he can achieve his dream of travelling back to Africa by this chance. They shake hands with each other and Donizetti leaves a card for Zinga to come to his hotel room the next day.

Zinga can't wait to go. The next day he dresses in a suit, apparently for the first time since he both walks and acts in a lame and inappropriate way. Zinga's wife is also with him to deal with the hotel managers. In the end they find the way to Donizetti's room and he starts a series of tests and introduces several skills to help Zinga improve his singing. At first Zinga is reluctant to accept these instructions, like ‘breathing from the stomach’ and ‘singing from the breast’, claiming that he knows how to sing. And he fights against singing in a suit, since he doesn't feel ‘free’. His voice significantly lacks emotion compared to when he sings freely with friends and in a pub about his homeland in Africa. But after his wife's comforting, mainly focussing on the chance of travelling back to Africa, he is persuaded to follow those doctrinaire rules and techniques.