Not enough meat on the bones of this well-meant tale of newbie teacher Dorothy Dandridge learning on the job at a segregated elementary school down South. While only tangentially dealing with racial issues (a nice departure for the period), the subject does come up in a natural manner when the lead student, a tough to teach character named C.T., wonders if God is black or white since we’re all created in his image. And the subject comes into focus again when a student falls ill and the visiting doctor is Robert Horton, the film’s sole white character. But the main focus is on Dandridge trying to get thru to C.T. (something of a blank in Philip Hepburn’s perf) and how she interacts with school principal Harry Belafonte, making his film debut. The two are distractingly gorgeous, but don’t get your hopes up, the story doesn’t go there. With more texture & better observation (the Southern locales are backlot stuff); greater attention to his inexperienced cast; and a bit of coaxing to bring out the story’s implied poetic tone (lots of singing already built into the scenes); tv director Gerald Mayer might have made something of this. Quick example: when C.T.’s little friend dies suddenly from a viral infection, he stops by her makeshift grave to reflect. How much better, and more natural, to have him note her passing by coming upon her empty desk in class. Too many missed opportunities like this.
DOUBLE-BILL: Follow Belafonte & Dandridge into the sexy fatalism (and dubbed operatic voices) of Otto Preminger’s stunningly realized CARMEN JONES/’54 (see below).
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