Canada Lee Movies

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, All Movie Guide

This riveting 1947 drama, regarded by many as the greatest boxing movie of all time, centers on a former pugilist who looks back on his life in and out of the ring and realizes that self-respect is a more important prize than winning. John Garfield is Charlie Davis, a former boxing champion who began fighting in order to save himself and his mother from poverty after his father was killed in a mob-related bombing. William Conrad plays Quinn, a veteran boxer-turned-trainer who discovers that Davis has the potential to be a professional fighter. Eager to take on all contenders, Davis eventually defeats the world champion, but winning has cost him more than he bargained for. He falls in with the mob and takes to a life of easy women and plentiful booze, winning easy bouts with second-rate opponents. In the end, Davis realizes the error of his ways -- but is it too late? With all the odds against him, and knowing that the fight has already been fixed, Davis is forced to make the choice between what's expected of him and what he expects of himself. The fight sequences were filmed on roller skates with a hand-held camera, adding a realism that strengthens the film's verisimilitude. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Seeking a creative challenge after several years' worth of fairly elaborate melodramas, director Alfred Hitchcock stages all of the action in Lifeboat in one tiny boat, adrift in the North Atlantic. The boat holds eight survivors of a Nazi torpedo attack: sophisticated magazine writer/photographer Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead), Communist seaman John Kovac (John Hodiak), nurse Alice MacKenzie (Mary Anderson), mild-mannered radio-operator Stan (Hume Cronyn), seriously wounded Brooklynese stoker Gus Smith (William Bendix), insufferable-capitalist Charles Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), black-steward George Spencer (Canada Lee) and half-mad passenger Mrs. Higgins (Heather Angel), who carries the body of her dead baby. This adroitly calculated cross-section of humanity is reduced by one when Mrs. Higgins kills herself. After a day or so of floating aimlessly about, the castaways pick up another passenger, Willy (Walter Slezak), who is a survivor from the German U-boat. At first everyone assumes that Willy cannot speak English, but when the necessity arises he reveals himself to be conversant in several languages and highly intelligent; in fact, he was the U-boat's captain. As the only one on board with any sense of seamanship, Willy steers a course to his mother ship, while the others resign themselves to being prisoners of war. After it becomes necessary to amputate Gus's leg, Willy decides that the burly stoker is excess weight; while the others sleep, he tosses Gus overboard, watching dispassionately as the poor man drowns. When the rest of the passengers discover what he's done, all of them (with one significant exception) violently gang up on Gus, and once more, the lifeboat drifts about sans navigation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide