This is that rare socially conscious "problem" film that looks more rather than less complicated with the passage of time. In school up North, Jeanne Crain ’s Pinky passed as white, but back down South with Grandma Ethel Waters, she no longer knows what she wants to be or what she is. Too many issues & conflicts are either smoothed out (Ethel Barrymore ’s dowager grows nice and dies on cue for the plot mechanics) or finessed (fiance William Lundigan is sent packing to save us from an interracial marriage), but Elia Kazan and writers Philip Dunne & Dudley Nichols acknowledge being plain out of their depth with some intriguingly conflicted black characters. Not exactly a success, but it holds you.
No comments:
Post a Comment