AllMovie

The first all-black "talking picture," Georgia Rose was billed as a musical comedy and starred veteran African-American performer (and health spa proprietor) Clarence Brooks, Spencer Williams ("Andy" on the television show Amos and Andy) and the era's busiest African-American actress, stock company veteran Evelyn Preer. Having suffered famine in Georgia, Reverend Hoskins (E.C. Dyer) leads his flock to the Midwest where they become tenants of Mary Barnett (Dora Dean Williams). The minister's daughter Rose (Irene Wilson) falls in love with Mary's son Ralph (Brooks). Ralph, however, is a city type more attracted to fast girls like Grace Dean (Preer), whose ne'er-do-well brother Bob (Edward Thompson) sweet-talks Rose into singing in a city cabaret. Disturbed by this turn of events, Ralph breaks with his sophisticated crowd and brings Rose home to the ranch. This technically primitive musical was directed by Harry A. Gant, a white cameraman who had been one of the founders of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, a pioneering producer of all-black melodramas. The cabaret scenes in Georgia Rose were filmed at Los Angeles' Dunbar Hotel.