The film begins in some weird celestial court. A young unmarried woman dies in childbirth and the court weighs the evidence to determine her fate. On one hand, she played cards, didn't attend church regularly and she slept with a man she wasn't married to...on the other, there is the promise of eternal life through Jesus.
When seen today, "Verdict Not Guilty" must seem very quaint and strange. After all, it's a religious allegory involving a dead woman and a weird trial to determine if she's to enter heaven or not. It also appears to have been made for next to nothing and is a silent film...long after silents disappeared in America. I know nothing about the movie apart from what I saw on the Criterion Channel, but assume it wasn't meant for theaters but perhaps black churches, due to its style and all-black cast. Weird and worth watching! And, impossible to rate due to its strange style.