User Reviews

It isn't just that it's the most racist movie I've seen in a long time. It's just not very good. You have major parts played by white actors. In black and white, they don't even look dark. Then you have the ridiculous premise where the woman of "white blood" has longings she just can't explain. She is tilting toward her whiteness. Of course, it's obvious who the superior race is here. They lounge with their juleps and order the servants around. The "hero" is a monumental jerk, but he is a white guy. There's lots of talk about the problems of mixing with other races and it's a given, of course. The blacks also dance around doing their voodoo rites, totally "out of control." It's up to the landholder and his rich friends to take care of them. Also, Chloe was raised and loved by these people, but when she is revealed as a one hundred percent white woman, well, you can imagine what they're thinking. I realize how unenlightened people were (and how hateful). But it must have been viewed as a horrible depiction, even back in the 30's. I know that there is an historical perspective that applies here. Maybe we should all see this kind of stuff once in a while.

Awful, just awful story about a young white woman raised by a black voodoo woman. If the NAACP ever saw this they would throw a fit. There are white actors playing black with virtually no make-up. The actress playing Chloe is having a terrible life until she finds out she is really white.

Story is basically a rich old southern gentlemen lost his daughter when she was just a child. An old black woman lost her own daughter and kidnapped Chloe and raised her as her own. There is love interest and plotted revenge by the black voodoo woman, but in the end the father and daughter are reunited. No matter what the VHS advertisements say, this is not a lost classic nor even remotely close to a horror movie. Do not watch it.

Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934)

BOMB (out of 4)

Incredibly bad film and I'm really not sure what the hell it was suppose to be about. Chloe (Olive Borden), a mixed race girl, returns to the swamp with a voodoo priestess who might be her mother. The voodoo priestess then wants to use Chloe to kill the man who lynched her father. The side plot deals with Chloe not knowing if she should be black or white or something like that. The biggest issue with the film is that it's confusing as hell and nothing ever really happens. Everything leads up to a voodoo sacrifice, which is just downright silly. This didn't ever make it into theaters back in the day. Instead the producers would go around to black neighborhoods and show it. This was apparently done because it was a "black film" but perhaps they just didn't want people seeing something this bad.

"A young woman of mixed parentage lives in the bayou, raised by a black voodoo priestess who looks to avenge the death of her husband, lynched by an angry white mob. As the tension rises due to the evil plans of the priestess, the young woman finds herself torn between two cultures. Hoping to break free from the control of the woman who raised her, the young woman finds she must confront the priestess in order to save her own life, as well as those the priestess intends to harm," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Voodoo… Hocus-pocus… Racist… Trash!

The most astonishing thing about "Chloe, Love Is Calling You" is that it was directed by Marshall Neilan. One of the most well-known filmmakers of the 1920s, Mr. Neilan's films were once eagerly anticipated. He was especially successful in partnership with Mary Pickford (see "Stella Maris"). Beautiful star Olive Borden ended her ten-year film career as "Chloe", unfortunately. It also offers a good look at handsome Reed Howes (as Wade) and handsome Philip Ober (as Jim), who was Vivian Vance's volatile husband (off-screen) during "I Love Lucy".

** Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) Marshall Neilan ~ Olive Borden, Reed Howes, Philip Ober

A black voodoo priestess comes out of the Louisiana swamps to take revenge on the white plantation owner she believes killed her husband.

This was produced by some small independent company called Pinnacle. It's a production company that distributed a handful of these plantation movies in the 20s and 30s. Some other reviewer here who obviously has an ax to grind, claims the black actors are played by white people.

He probably thinks the Amos & Andy TV show featured white actors in blackface too. To be fair, there are two characters who are supposed to be black but are white.

The title character, Chloe is supposed to be of mixed race and she is played by a famous silent film star. This is her last picture. Her star had dimmed and she wound up first joining the army (WACS) after this film and years later was found scrubbing floors for a living. In 1947, at the age of 40, she died of a "stomach ailment" at the Sunshine Mission - a home for destitute women on Los Angeles' Skid Row.

One of her two love interests is white too, playing a black man.

If you really examine the film, the white characters are all stereotypes -- rich, sauntering around in white suits drinking frilly drinks talking about their deals. While a few others are working class with hillbilly accents. The black characters are largely silent and working plantation. Except for the voodoo priestess who has a fair amount of dialog. This women was up for the role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind.

What I'm saying is this: the film is far more complicated than just a knee jerk response of saying all the blacks are stereotypes. Everybody in this movie is a stereo type of some sort.

And casting a white actress (probably because she was a real star at one time, hence an audience draw) would make it hard back then to cast a true black man as a romantic interest. Conversely, how could they cast a black actress with a white love interest in 1934?

To a degree you can almost make the case that this movie is an allegory for the unfairness of race relations. In today's world of political correctness I suppose few are willing to look beyond a kool-aide drinking response to the content of the movie.

Chloe and white Reed fall in love because of what's inside, not because of race or wealth or anything else.

So is it a good movie? To be honest, the available prints are bad. The focus is off and the sound is poor, so it's a wee bit difficult to follow the story. At some point we find out that Chloe is actually the colonel's lost daughter who disappeared at birth. But the Colonel welcomes her with open arms, and that's likely not to happen if she was half black in those times.

The women in the film are the ones to question whether or not Chloe is really the colonel's daughter, saying "she's so dark." Again a comment on racist mindsets and small minded people.

I found the movie to be very watchable despite to poor print quality. I think it deserves a new look, perhaps with a complete print. The DVD prints have 8 minutes cut out of them and one wonders what's in those 8 minutes!

Some reviewers have said it's typical that the white man comes out on top in this movie, but the real moral of the movie is that love comes out on top.

If you have an open mind and are sick of people with an agenda, take a look at this movie. It's not a great film, but it's an interesting curio piece that probably deserves to be restored.

I agree that the plot and presentation are flawed, however, there is value in seeing how some people perceived certain social situations during an earlier era in our history. Not all people at that time, of course, saw things the same way, nor would they have made the movie in the way that it was done, but I appreciate all the old films because each gives us a short look at things through other eyes.

As for the complaint that the NAACP would not like the film, I am not sure about that. Maybe they would see some value in the enhanced exposure of certain attitudes, maybe not.

Having grown up in Louisiana, I do think that the voodoo scenes were overdone and the man wrestling with an already dead alligator was pretty hokey, but I was pleased to see some clear water for a change. (I suspect that scene may have been filmed in Florida because by the 1930's we had pretty much ruined our bayous already.)

Mike

Olive Borden was one of the most beautiful and successful actresses of the 1920s. Unfortunately by 1934 her career was ruined by salary demands and a bad reputation. Chloe, Love is Calling would be Olive's final film. It's a low-budget movie set in the Southern swamps. Olive plays Chloe, the light skinned daughter of a voodoo priestess. Unfortunately the plot has a lot of racist elements and most people give this movie bad reviews. I thought it was an interesting story and I enjoyed seeing Olive (although this is certainly not her best performance). An interesting piece of trivia is that Olive was dating the director of this film Marshall Neilan. If you're a fan of Olive Borden it's definitely worth your time to watch Chloe. It's a public domain film and can be seen for free on You Tube or the Internet Archive. Sadly Olive died penniless in 1947 at the young age of 41.