Bright Road (1953)

(On Cable TV, February 2021) February is a great month for catching up on movies of interest to black audiences, as Black History Month dictates programming on the better channels. So it is that I ended up watching Bright Road, more out of interest for Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte than anything else. Truth be told, I had a hard time staying interested in the film — it’s a rural teacher’s fantasy, as our protagonist (Dandridge) fights for the redemption and future of a rebellious boy in an Alabama elementary school. The film’s biggest problem is that it feels a lot like an entire lineage of inspiring teacher films, and that I’m not too keen to spend all that much time in the rural deep south. Still, the film does come alive when Dandridge is on-screen, and even more so when Bellafonte (in his first feature film appearance) shows up to share a few dialogue scenes and sing a little. Morally, the film is an admirable paean to the value of education, even in the most desperate circumstances. I also found it interesting to see the film mostly absent of racial tension — black stories can also be told without constantly being about racism, and this film manages to say something different. It does end on a triumphant mark that makes the entire film feel better. Bright Road is a film that eventually stands up on its own — but it may be worth watching as a double-bill with Sounder once in a while.