Lost African American TV: Robert L. Goodwin’s “The Upper Chamber”

Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive series Archive Television Treasures. Register at cinema.ucla.edu to attend this in-theater screening.

In-person Q&A with Robert Goodwin Jr., son of Robert L. Goodwin, moderated by Ina Archer, NMAAHC.

Robert L. Goodwin’s teleplay concerns a gifted Black poet (actor Robert DoQui of Robert Altman’s Nashville) who embraces militancy for social change, while rejecting violence and toeing the line of the status quo.

Special thanks to David Moore, Paulist Productions.

(1969, dir. Ralph Senensky, DCP, color, 30 min.)

Written, produced, and co-starring Robert L. Goodwin this expertly written and mounted drama eavesdrops on four men awaiting execution on death row. In their final hours, as they contemplate the nature of fate, their stories are juxtaposed against the tale of the crucifixion, with the men appearing in flashback biblical scenes that replicate key events in their present-day lives.

(1968, dir. Buck Richard Pennington, DCP, b&w, 60 min.)