Desc: The House Behind the Cedars: Directed by Oscar Micheaux. With Shingzie Howard, Andrew Bishop, Lawrence Chenault, Alma Sewell. Rena ( Shingzie Howard ), a beautiful mulatto woman, who passes as white, receives a proposal from an aristocratic white millionaire who has fallen in love with her. Rena accepts without revealing the secret of her racial background. Unhappy, Rena returns to her former lover, Frank Fowler, a black man, who has risen to power despite his color. She tells him that although she has fooled the public, she has not fooled herself.