I’mtalking about the post-World War II years, when much of the country was stillracially segregated. Hollywoodwas just beginning to deal with the problems of race relations, which oftenerupted into violence. And audiences were transfixed.
The bestplace to experience this turning point in America’s domestic history is cableTV’s Turner Classic Movies, where the finest vintage films are alive and well,uncut and commercial-free.
For thelast 15 years, TCM has featured knowledgeable in-studio hosts doling out movietrivia. This is what I grew up on from the late-1940s through the ’60s, and Ifeel like a kid in a candy store when watching. The smorgasbord of vintage Hollywood goodies you’ll see there includes many of thefinest black-oriented films ever made.
My fave is1961’s A Raisin in the Sun. Othersinclude Imitation of Life (1934); Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather (1943); Home of the Brave (1949); No Way Out (1950); Cry, the Beloved Country (1951); The Memberof the Wedding(1952); Bright Road (1953); and Carmen Jones (1954).
The themeonly picked up steam with the rising Civil Rights Movement in the form of Something of Value and Island in the Sun (1957); The Defiant Ones and St. LouisBlues (1958); Porgy and Bessand Odds Against Tomorrow (1959); Pressure Point (1962); Purlie Victorious (1963); and Nothing But a Man and One Potato, Two Potato (1964).
Among thenonpareil black actors appearing in such films were Louise Beavers, JamesEdwards, Ethel Waters, Canada Lee, Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands, HarryBelafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, RexIngram, Claudia McNeil, Louis Gossett Jr., Eartha Kitt, Brock Peters, DiahannCarroll, Sammy Davis Jr., Abbey Lincoln, Nina Mae McKinney, Nat King Cole,Robert Earl Jones and William Marshall.
Three Standout Films
Threetingling racial dramas crackling with suspense rank at the top: 1949’s Intruder in the Dust and Lost Boundaries and 1951’s The Well. Photographed in black andwhite, each was considered daring at the time for depicting the humiliation ofsegregation, racial conflict and white mob psychology prior to the tumultuous1960s.
Intruder in the Dust is a realisticadaptation of a William Faulkner novel set in and around a small Southern townafter World War II. It tells the story of a proud, elderly black man (played bythe great Juano Hernandez) accused of killing a young white man, although therewere no witnesses. White residents are enraged and form a lynch mob.Hernandez’s riveting, albeit understated, performance is supported by ClaudeJarman Jr. as a young white boy who refuses to believe the man is guilty.Elizabeth Patterson is brilliant as an old white woman who agrees to help provethe accused man innocent. David Brian, as the boy’s uncle, is a lawyer whoreluctantly defends Hernandez.
Thisstunning film presents an authentic, down-home look, and its disturbing contentwas in keeping with a new wave of honesty in portraying simmering suspicionsand tensions between blacks and whites that remain today. Hernandez’dignitywhich he displays in the face of adversity in other message moviesisadmirable, indeed.
Lost Boundaries is the true story of alight-skinned black doctor (Mel Ferrer) who graduates from a mostly whitemedical school in Chicago in the 1920s, but isrejected by a black hospital in Georgiadue to his color. Frustrated, he and his equally white-looking wife (BeatricePearson) then pass for white to practice in a small New Hampshire town.
Things arefine for 20 years. But at the outbreak of World War II, the doctor is denied acommission in the segregated Navy (which didn’t accept blacks as officers)after his race is discovered in a security check. Ferrer and Pearson finallyshare the family secret with their grown, white-looking son and daughter. Wordgets out and previously friendly townspeople react negatively, causingcomplications and embarrassment. This heart-wrenching film is enhanced by notedblack actors, including Canada Lee, William Greaves and Leigh Whipper.
The Well concerns mob violence ina racially mixed small town when a 5-year-old black girl (Gwendolyn Laster)falls into an abandoned well after being seen with a white man (Harry Morgan),nephew of the leading citizen (Barry Kelley). Armed mobs form as Kelley vows tobreak Morgan out of jail and drive all black people out of town.
The whitesheriff (Richard Rober) tries to contain the vitriolic race hatred sparked bygossip, which turns into unbridled violence by both sides. The marvelous blackcast also includes Ernest Anderson, Maidie Norman, Bill Walker and the lateGeorge Hamilton of Milwaukee,my former neighbor and one of my family’s dearest friends.
A seminalfilm on race relations, replete with raw anti-black epithets, The Well speaks volumes about crowdpsychology and unfounded rumors. Along with Intruderinthe Dust and Lost Boundaries, it retains itstroubling power nearly 60 years later.
