Charles MacRae Movies
A landmark independent film, Nothing but a Man is the first dramatic story featuring a largely black cast created for an integrated audience (the work of black filmmakers such as Oscar Micheaux was intended for audiences who patronized black-only theaters). White filmmakers Michael Roemer and Robert M. Young traveled through the South in 1962 in search of ideas for a fiction feature set during the growing turbulence of the civil rights era. Their story, based in Alabama but shot in southern New Jersey, is only tangentially related to the movement toward equality. Duff, an itinerant black railroad laborer (Ivan Dixon), romances and marries Josie, a small-town preacher's daughter (Abbey Lincoln). Duff insists on being treated with respect, but his stance is personal rather than political. After he settles down in the town with Josie, he comes up against white bosses who want to make sure he knows his place and black men such as Josie's father who don't want to rock the boat for fear of losing what little advantage they have. Duff's relationship with his own father (Julius Harris), a broken-down drunk living in Birmingham, teaches him valuable lessons about dignity and self-worth. The film was lauded at both the New York and Venice festivals but received limited release in theaters specializing in foreign and independent film. However, word of mouth in the black community (where Nothing but a Man was for years a staple on the 16 mm rental market, in the days before VCRs) and continued attention by film historians have ensured the status of Nothing but a Man as a pioneering and enduring work. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, (more)
- 1951
This deliberately paced British film about a black rural priest and a white landowner whose paths cross in 1940s South Africa remains one of the most powerful cinematic statements on racism. Based on Alan Paton's landmark novel, Cry the Beloved Country is, in hindsight, naïve in its belief that apartheid would be easier to overcome than history proved it to be, but its intentions are certainly in the right place and it never trivializes the importance of the issue. To the credit of both Paton and director-producer Zoltan Korda, the film maintains a dignity and relevancy that is not always true of other "message" movies from the 1940s and '50s. Partly, this is because the characters, both black and white, are much more fully developed than a Hollywood production would have allowed them to be. Another factor is that the filmmakers do not resort to heavy-handedness, and instead allow the story to speak for itself. Knowing that the film was actually shot on location in South Africa during the height of apartheid only compounds the impact of this film. Canada Lee, as the priest Kumalo, and Charles Carson, as the farmer Jarvis, give stunning, multi-layered performances as two men who must go through a wrenching emotional experience. The solid supporting cast includes Joyce Carey as Jarvis' wife and a twenty-something Sidney Poitier as a Johannesburg priest. More than forty years later, after apartheid's fall, Cry the Beloved Country was remade with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, Rovi
- Starring:
- Canada Lee, Charles Carson, (more)
