FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1977
THE BENNETT BANNER
Page Three
ROBYN'S NEST
Black Movies: ’40s to ’70s
by Robyn-Denise Berryhill
There were two central themes
employed for black movie roles
in the 1940’s: calvacade’s of blacks
cast in musical extravaganzas that
had little or no plot and Negroes
who had troubles because they
wanted to pass for white.
Without a doubt, Lena Horne
proved to be the biggest black
box office attraction of this par
ticular era. Her first film with
MGM was “Panama Hattie,” star
ring Red Skelton and Ann South
ern. In this she sang a Latin song
and dance number in a tight-fit
ting gown and danced her way off
the set.
This was just the beginning of a
series of musicals starring whites
where she was allowed to enter
tain all-white audiences with an
all-black orchestra backing her
up. She was never identified in
any of these roles and was for a
time mistaken for a Latin Ameri
can. MGM received so many com
plaints about this mistaken iden
tity from black movie-goers, that
they were forced to star her in
the two major all-black musicals
of the 1940s: “Cabin in the Sky”
and “Stormy Weather,” both made
in 1943. These two movies until
this day live on as a trademark
associated with Lena Horne. How
ever, soon after their release she
lost favor with MGM because of
her marriage to white musician
Lenny Heyton.
Other black performers who ap
peared in these musical bonanzas
were Eddie “Rochester” Anderson,
musician Fats Waller, the dance
team of the Nicolas Brothers, the
“heidi-ho” man himself, Cab Cal
loway, the Duke Ellington Orches
tra and a songstress by the name
of Hazel Scott.
Hazel Scott was born to wealthy
and educated parents in Trinidad
in the 1920s. She was a child
prodigy on piano at the age of
three and began improvising the
classics at age five. While still
quite young she moved to America
with her parents and made her
professional debut on piano in a
Greenwich Village nightclub at
age eighteen. She became an over
night sensation and went on to
Hollywood.
Once in Hollywood, she firmly
established herself as virtually the
only black woman to simply play
herself in a motion picture. Any
other roles that were offered to
her for black women were con
sidered by her to be degrading
and undignified. Because of her
refusal to play the traditional
stereotyped roles offered to black
women, she was soon phased out
of the Hollywood movie scene.
Later she went on to marry the
popular New York congressman,
Adam Clayton Powell.
With all the light-skinned
blacks in America, one wonders
why it was found necessary to
cast whites in the roles of Ne
groes who attempted to pass for
whites. The most popular of these
movies, “Imitation of Life” (1934),
“Pinky” (1949) and “Lost Bound
aries” all cast whites in the major
roles. Later on, the musical
“Showboat” was to follow suit.
“Pinky” starring Jeanne Crain
as the tragic mullato and Ethel
Waters as the God-fearing grand
mother, tells the story of a fair
skinned girl who is raised to be
black but later goes off to nursing
school up North where she suc
ceeds in passing for white. Her
charade nets her a young white
intern for a fiancee. After nursing
school, she returns to her home
in the South where she makes a
sincere effort to live as a black.
But numerous circumstances make
this clearly impossible. A near
rape and a chance for immediate
marriage bring her fiancee south.
When he finds out her true iden
tity, he is gone swiftly.
Grandmother gets into the act
and condemns Pinky for her sin
ning. “It’s a shame before God to
deny who you are,” she bellows.
Pinky is then ordered by her
grandmother to “fall to your knees
and beg, beg, beg, beg for mercy
and forgiveness.” Forgiveness
shall be granted, deems grand
mother, if Pinky will consent to
act as nursemaid to a very old,
very poor, very cynical and very
sick, once rich, Southern belle
named Miss Em. Mis Em cur
rently has one foot in the grave,
looks like death and is despised
by the whole town save Ethel
Waters. Pinky agrees to care for
her and when she dies, she leaves
her house and a half-a-million
dollars to Pinky. After a lengthy
court battle over the validity of
the will. Pinky wins and opens up
a school to train black nurses in
tlie mansion named in honor of
Miss Em.
During this time an independ
ent black filmaker by the name of
Oscar Micheaux was also making
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movies about the problems of
“passing” and the dilemma’s of
middle-class blacks. But financial
problems and poor technical qual
ity along with segregation, pre
vented any of these from becom
ing a major success.
Blacks continued to sing and
dance their way into the 1950’s in
musicals like “Carmen Jones” and
“Porgy and Bess.” In these mu
sicals faces like Dorothy Dand-
ridge. Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis,
Jr. and Harry Belafonte emerged.
Also, movies that attempted to
place the credit of the race on the
accomplishments of black athletes
sprang up. “The Jackie Robinson
Story” and “The Joe Louis Story”
are good examples. But, by the
end of this decade, a young actor
who had brought a new type of
image to the screen emerged. His
name was Sidney Poitier.
Sidney Poitier went on to be
come one of the most important
actors black or white of the 1960s.
His performance in “Lillies of the
Field” made him the first and
only black man to win an Oscar
for “Best Actor.”
With the Civil Rights era of the
1960s, a series of integrated
movies began to pop up. Movies
that encouraged interracial dating
were made: “One Potato, Two
Potato,” “Guess Who’s Coming to
Dinner” and “The Great White
Hope.” The underlying theme be
hind this seems to be that these
relationships can occur but in the
end the price paid for it may not
have been worth the trouble.
(Continued on Page 6)
'Colored Girls'
Shows Beauty
Of Black Women
There is currently a play
on Broadway, “For Colored
Girls Who Have Considered
Suicide When The Rainbow
is Enuf,” that is a smash
ing success and so contro
versial that it has evoked
the criticism of many
alongside the praise of
many others.
I have not had the privi-
ledge of seeing the play but
from the sound of the orig
inal Broadway cast record
ing it is definitely a win
ner.
The play itself is a series
of poems written by a lady
who I am sure is headed
for unmatched success in
the theater world, Ntozake
Shange. The poems go
through the stages of a
black woman — in love.
They catch the spirit of be
ing loved, hated, betrayed,
and rejected by a man.
In these poems the total
psyche of a black woman is
revealed in a way that very
few black women could
deny being able to relate to.
■\^at is striking about
the poems is that they are
real with no dressing, sim
ply the bare facts. They
discuss pain and sorrow in
a way that makes one feel
like dealing with them in
stead of succumbing to
them.
In the beginning of the
record one of the actresses
begs for somebody to please
sing a black girl’s song, to
sing a song of her possibili
ties. The record concludes
with that song of her pos
sibilities. The song is re
freshing and brings with it
a regeneration of the spirit.
Moreover, it brings the
realization that a woman is
her own woman belonging
to herself, not someone to
be patronized, walked over
or rejected.