Colored Players Film Corporation

The Colored Players Film Corporation, also known as The Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, was an independent silent film production company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Primarily founded by David Starkman and Sherman H. Dudley in 1926, the film company for the most part made silent melodramatic films that featured all African American casts. During its brief time operating, the production company released four films, including A Prince of His Race (1926), a remake of Timothy Shay Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1926) with an all black cast, Children of Fate (1927), and finally The Scar of Shame (1929). Of the four films the company produced only Ten Nights in a Bar Room and The Scar of Shame still remain.

Sherman H. “Uncle Dud” Dudley was born in Dallas, Texas around 1872. Growing up Dudley was part of medicine and minstrel shows and by the 1890s had become a popular performer. He became interested and learned about films while working on the set of The Simp. Dudley, at the time, a veteran of vaudevillian and race movies had the idea for a black Hollywood free from black stereotypes. In 1926 Dudley met with David Starkman, an owner of a black theatre; Starkman shared Dudley’s vision as well as hoped to aim his films to the African American population in Philadelphia. Thus Dudley and Starkman organized the Colored Players Film Corporation placing Dudley as the President of the Corporation and Starkman in charge of the operation, management, and finances of the film production company.

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