Harry Belafonte

  • Island in the Sun (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) There are many reasons why Island in the Sun is interesting, but far fewer to call it good. Oh, it’s certainly respectable: As a prestige picture adapting a well-known novel to the screen, it comes with a mixture of pedigree, dramatic ambition and production means. For contemporary audiences, the most noteworthy thing about the film is how progressive it feels compared to other 1950s dramas—it talks about race relations and interracial relationships in a fictitious Caribbean setting, and isn’t afraid to go for high melodrama to make its points. The multi-stranded plot makes good use of its ensemble cast, and a generous amount of on-location shooting lets the colour cinematography of the film escape from studio sets. For celebrity watchers, the film has an embarrassingly rich cast: everyone from James Mason (playing his usual blend of malice and panache) to Harry Belafonte (terrific!) to Joan Fontaine to Joan Collins to Dorothy Dandridge and the always-entertaining John Williams in a minor but showy role. Beyond racial issues, Island in the Sun also acknowledges matters of class and wealth, with a few set-pieces of populist unrest. Reading about the film’s controversial reception is unsurprising, but it reflects its complexity compared to many of the blander 1950s social-issue dramas. All of this clearly combines to make Island in the Sun a minor recommendation in looking at 1950s cinema, and a film that’s still watchable for many good reasons. On the other hand, it doesn’t quite cross the frontier separating interest to enjoyment—it often feels ponderous and limited, with morals that don’t feel coherent, as it makes a point of its anti-racism but goes soft on marital rape. Watching Dandridge deal with a complex but stunted dramatic role is a sheer waste of talent—especially considering how few movies she made as a leading actress. The warnings attached to Island in the Sun may be lighted than others of the time, but they’re still there—and perhaps it’s best to be forewarned that it’s not going to be enjoyable as much as it’s going to be interesting.

  • Uptown Saturday Night (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2022) For some cinephiles, casting can be an attraction in itself—even if it’s never a good predictor of quality. So it is that 1970s blaxploitation comedy Uptown Saturday Night features a rich assortment of names: Sidney Poitier directing himself, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte and (in a comparatively smaller role) Richard Pryor in a crime comedy that would spawn two other unrelated follow-ups. Under Poitier’s direction, the film is self-consciously aiming higher than the usual blaxploitation film (to the point where that label is very much open to discussion)—the characters are dignified, the all-black cast isn’t reducible to stereotypes and the film has a welcome comedic pep that sustains most of its duration. There are two generations of leading black actors here in between Bellafonte and Poitier (gentlemen to the core), then Cosby and Pryor (whose respective stars were more than tarnished later on). It’s an interesting counterpart to the harder crime-edged thrillers that compose most of the mid-1970s black-cast movies and should prove interesting to black film historians for that reason. Otherwise, well, the actresses are beautiful and the jokes generally land—what else would you want? Much of the humour comes from ordinary middle-class people getting embroiled in the underworld for want of a lost lottery ticket and lying to their wives—there’s a relaxed easiness to the comedy as it comes to Cosby and Poitier and the sum of it is much greater than seeing a few known names working together in the same film.

  • Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

    Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) Coming from the end of the classic film noir era, Odds Against Tomorrow does have one interesting wrinkle for an urban subgenre that remained surprisingly Caucasian-tinted throughout its first iteration: A black main character. While much of the story will feel very familiar and bridges the gap between classic noir and bank robbery thrillers, the race of the main character does bring something different and interesting to the results. Of course, much of this has to do with Harry Belafonte (who also co-produced the film)— always a charismatic performer, and fascinating to watch in a film focused on harder-edged crime suspense. Racism becomes a further source of tension between the men plotting the bank robbery and as things predictably blow up toward the end of the film, it does add an extra dimension of social commentary to a film not completely focused on genre mechanics. (The coda is not subtle about the essential meaninglessness of race in those circumstances, but it’s far better than avoiding the issue.)  Director Robert Wise was never an accomplished stylist, but he here manages to create an effective sense of tension, at least when the action gets started in the second half. Odds Against Tomorrow does falter when compared to other bank heist films of the 1950s, but the racial element alone distinguishes it from a lot of similar films, and justifies by itself a look at the result — if it’s not already on your viewing list if only for Belafonte’s presence.

  • Bright Road (1953)

    Bright Road (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (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.

  • Carmen Jones (1954)

    Carmen Jones (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) A recent refresher about Dorothy Dandridge’s rather sad biography made it essential to view her career peak Carmen Jones. Despite a long history of systemic racism, Hollywood has, from time to time, made features with all-black casting. Carmen Jones is one of them, and it’s unsurprising that it would come from noted iconoclast Otto Preminger. Adapting the classic Bizet opera (perhaps the only opera featuring two numbers that regular people can hum) to the WW2-era was already something, but setting it in an all-black cast was the kind of decision to make people stand up and notice. The result has aged remarkably well as a period piece: It helps that the film opens with a scorcher of a number in “Carmen” as Dandridge vamps her way across a mess hall and takes aim at the lead male character, setting in motion the tragic events that follow. Dandridge fans know that Preminger’s interest in Dandridge was far from purely professional, and that may have helped in elevating her terrific lead performance in Carmen Jones: she looks nothing less than fantastic here even if her voice is dubbed, playing a femme fatale in a non-noir context. (That said, the film noir comparisons may not be all that far off: The entire story is a tragic cautionary tale about fate destroying you, with the hero experiencing a downward spiral eventually bringing him to that beloved noir common ground of a boxing hall.) The other big hummable number is the classic “toreador song,” here called “Stan’ Up an’ Fight” and led with gusto by Husky Miller. Dandridge often overshadows her co-star Harry Belafonte, but he’s equally impressive as the protagonist led to perdition—although, once again, the very idea of him being dubbed over is amazing to modern viewers used to his long musical career. It’s not a perfect film—what’s the progressive appeal of an all-black cast if they’re portrayed as “shameless vixens” and weak men destroyed by lust? Still, I’d rather have a Hollywood with Carmen Jones in its archives than without—considering that we’re still dealing with representativeness issues today, any tiny step forward is not to be discounted from today’s perch. From a more conventional perspective, I’m not a big fan of much of Carmen Jones: many numbers drag, and the film is not equally interesting. But Dandridge is terrific and so is Belafonte—and the big numbers are delightful.

  • The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)

    The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) What an interesting film. Decades before I am Legend, here is The World, The Flesh and The Devil featuring one black man (Harry Belafonte) alone in post-apocalyptic New York City, except that he meets a white woman (Inger Stevens) at the beginning of the second act and they fall in love except when another man enters the picture (Mel Ferrer) at the beginning of the third act and then the action gets downright primal. Often meditative, but simply eloquent by the choice of featuring a lead black actor (playing an engineer, no less) romancing a white woman as the (potentially) last two people on Earth, this is a film worth remembering for its explicit acknowledgement or racism and mental illness due to isolation. Belafonte was Sidney Poitier before Poitier, and he gets to show his charisma and singing abilities here, either by himself in the early minutes of the film, alongside Stevens later on, or in an increasingly antagonistic relationship with Ferrer late in the film. Some haunting shots of late-1950s Manhattan, completely empty of people, are good for a frisson or two. The ending doesn’t quite satisfy—it seems to push things to a breaking point, then draws back for less than convincing reasons. But at least it’s an ending everyone can live with.

  • BlacKKKlansman (2018)

    BlacKKKlansman (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) You can’t really tell a creator like writer-director Spike Lee what to do. But with BlacKKKlansman, there’s a feeling that he’s back at his activist best, delivering a ferociously engaged film that does not compromise on its entertainment value. Loosely adapted from a true story, it focuses on a black FBI agent (played by John David Washington, son of Denzel but on his way to a stardom of his own) who works with a Jewish co-worker (Adam Driver, also quite good) in order to infiltrate a local KKK group. The clear activist intent of the film is made even better through a considerable amount of comedy, suspense and scene-to-scene interest: this is probably Lee’s most purely entertaining film since Inside Man, and it’s a welcome return to form for him, as his last decade-and-change of filmmaking has been erratic or eclectic. The result is one heck of a movie—funny, compelling, heavily ironic, pulling no punches against racists and ending with a coda that really drives the point home that this may be a story from the past but not a past story. Great performances also show Lee working at his best—It’s hard to miss with Driver, but Washington establishes himself as a compelling lead, and we get a supporting performance from black activist legend Harry Belafonte (!) and an eye-catching turn from Laura Harrier. I really liked BlacKKKlansman, and its existence says much about the state of black filmmaking in the 2010s—telling its own stories, being matter-of-fact affirmative, processing ongoing irritation with the current state of American society and having the power to draw in large audiences to buy into its uncompromising message. The Academy make a mistake when it gave the Best Picture Academy Award to the inferior Green Book.