An advertising poster for this film is pictured on one stamp of a set of five 42¢ USA commemorative postage stamps honoring Vintage Black Cinema, issued 16 July 2008. Other films honored in this set are Black and Tan (1929), Princesse Tam-Tam (1935), Caldonia (1945), and Hallelujah (1929).
Screenings: Washington, D.C. premiere 23 April 1921: States
Theatre, Chicago, ~14 May; Owl Theatre, Chicago, 18-21 May;
Lafayette Theatre, New York, 23 May; Lincoln Theatre. Chicago, 26-28 May; Delphi Theater, Chicago, 31 May-1 June;
Philharmonic Auditorium, Los Angeles, 26 July; Trinity Auditorium.
Los Angeles, circa 5 August; Carey Theatre, Baltimore. 6
May 1924.
Film description 'The Sport of the Gods' published in Chicago Defender, (May 7
1921)
'The Sport of the Gods is a story of everyday life as we find it in reality but never before depicted on the screen nor interpreted on the stage. With the dang born of a courageous spirit Paul Laurence Dunbar has dipped his pen to a phase of life that is too well known to most of us and brought worth characters and incidents that make us smile and tug at our heart strings.
'The story deals with a man whose fidelity and loyalty was rewarded by being thrown into prison for the crime of another.
His wife, son and daughter, rather than suffer the humiliation and disgrace brought upon their Innocent heads by living among their friends in old Virginia, move to New York, that vast desert of humanity where souls are tossed and driven 10 the great monsoon of human struggle.
'The son falls in with evil companions and the daughter's character is placed in jeopardy as a singer In an underworld cabaret. The mother, having been convinced that a penitentiary sentence is the same as divorce, is persuaded to marry a man who has a scheme to get her money. The husband is finally released from jail after the real criminal had confessed and goes on to New York to join his family, only to find his wife had married another.
'It is then that the real complications arise and many thrilling scenes take place all of which are wonderfully and interestingly told in the picture. Suffice to say that all works out happily in the end.'
'The Sport of the Gods is a story of everyday life as we find it in reality but never before depicted on the screen nor interpreted on the stage. With the dang born of a courageous spirit Paul Laurence Dunbar has dipped his pen to a phase of life that is too well known to most of us and brought worth characters and incidents that make us smile and tug at our heart strings.
'The story deals with a man whose fidelity and loyalty was rewarded by being thrown into prison for the crime of another.
His wife, son and daughter, rather than suffer the humiliation and disgrace brought upon their Innocent heads by living among their friends in old Virginia, move to New York, that vast desert of humanity where souls are tossed and driven 10 the great monsoon of human struggle.
'The son falls in with evil companions and the daughter's character is placed in jeopardy as a singer In an underworld cabaret. The mother, having been convinced that a penitentiary sentence is the same as divorce, is persuaded to marry a man who has a scheme to get her money. The husband is finally released from jail after the real criminal had confessed and goes on to New York to join his family, only to find his wife had married another.
'It is then that the real complications arise and many thrilling scenes take place all of which are wonderfully and interestingly told in the picture. Suffice to say that all works out happily in the end.'