The Exile is a 1931 American film directed by Oscar Micheaux with choreography by Leonard Harper. A drama-romance of the race film genre, The Exile was Micheaux's first feature-length sound film, and the first African-American sound film. Adapted from Micheaux's first novel The Conquest (1913), it the film shares some autobiographical elements; for example, Micheaux spent several years as a cattle rancher in an otherwise all-white area of South Dakota as does the film's central character Jean Baptiste (played by Stanley Morrell). Cast Eunice Brooks as Edith Duval Stanley Morrell as Jean Baptiste Celeste Cole as Singer Nora Newsome as Agnes Stewart Carl Mahon as Jango Kathleen Noisette as Madge Charles R. Moore (actor) as Jack Stewart George Randol as Bill Prescott A.B. DeComathiere as An Outlaw Lou Vernon as District Attorney Louise Cook as Dancer Roland Holder as Tap Dancer Donald Heywood as Bandleader Plot In Chicago, Edith Duval has become powerful in the African-American community, mostly because she came into possession of a South Chicago mansion where she was once a servant; the white family that owned the mansion abandoned it when blacks started moving into the neighborhood. She is in love with Jean Baptiste, but she rejects his idealism and he is at odds with her cynicism. Edith wants to convert the mansion into a speakeasy and nightclub. Baptiste buys land in South Dakota and becomes a successful rancher. Five years into his time there, he falls in love with young Agnes Stewart. He considers the situation hopeless because Agnes is white, but she knows that he is black. Fleeing back to Chicago to escape the relationship, which he believes is doomed, the former teetotaler Baptiste returns to Edith's club, her liquor and her charms. They plan to marry, but her former lover, an Ethiopian named Jango, appears, sneaks into Edith's room and complains of how she has ruined him. After he threatens suicide, she hands him a gun as a gesture of contempt. Instead of killing himself, he kills her. Baptiste is initially suspected of the murder, but is cleared. Agnes's father, discovering that Baptiste has fled, tells her about his own background and she realizes that she is partly black. She takes a train to Chicago, where she and Baptiste are reunited; they marry and return to South Dakota. Production The film was shot at Metropolitan Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where many early