Darryl Zanuck's first independent production doesn't hold much critical cache - everyone takes pot shots at it, I think because it deals with race in 1957. Sure, absolutely, but it still deals with them, and this was a gutsy film to make at the time.
It was shot in the West Indies and looks amazing - beaches, carnivals, markets, colonial houses, parties. The cast is mostly B list but solid - Joan Collins, John Williams, Michael Rennie, John Justin, Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Fontaine, Stephen Boyd. I'm surprised Clifton Webb isn't in this.
Dandrige looks sensational but doesn't have much of a character to play - her plot needed a twist (black girl and white guy... I guess the fact the two of them have a happy ending was novel enough). Collins and Boyd have sex, he loves her she might be black but then she's not (Diana Wynard is good as mum)... that felt a bit hollow. I like James Mason killing Rennie - that was good. And there's decent scenes with John Williams as the cop hounding him.
I also didn't mind the Joan Fontaine and Belafonte romance. Very G-rated, absolutely, but she's clearly hot for him and he's been given tremendous status.
It does work dramatically, which later Zanuck films based on best-sellers like The Sun Also Rises and The Roots of Heaven didn't.
No comments:
Post a Comment