281. Carmen Jones (1954)

Directed By Otto Preminger

Synopsis

The story is about the same as Bizet's Carmen, but transposed to the second world war. A soldier falls in love with a factory worker who trades him for a richer boxer (a Toreador in the original), the soldier kills her out of jealousy.

Review

To direct a film in the mid 50s with nothing but black actors was a bold move, and that is exactly what Otto Preminger did. I was recently thinking about the fact that in the past on this list there have been very few speaking parts for black actors and even those have always been in secondary roles.

There was a silent film, the not very good Within Our Gates back in 1920 on the list, where the cast was mostly black. But to have a major, colour film, all singing all dancing, is something else, and if for nothing else this films deserves its place in history.

Some of the acting is slightly dodgy, particularly by Harry Belafonte's first girlfriend, but Dorothy Daindridge quickly makes you forget it, with a mesmerising performance as yet another uncommon character for the time of a sexy black woman. Recommended.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1955, Carmen Jones received the third Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. Dorothy Dandridge was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first African-American so honored. Herschel Burke Gilbert, who arranged the film's score, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture). In 1992, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Halle Berry, who played Dandridge in the 1999 TV biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which included a re-enactment of one of the film's famed scenes, was the first African-American actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Monster's Ball.

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