This is the bluntest, most straightforward and incisive drama on race relations I've ever seen, and from 1949!
Pinky is a "colored" southern woman who passes for white (Jeanne Crain, who had no trouble passing for white, considering), goes north, gets a nursing degree, falls in love with a (white) doctor, then goes back home when she finds it impossible to tell him her "terrible truth"
The story is presented as a "Moral Fable" and as such seems taken from a series of latter-day lithographs entitled "Scenes from the Segregated South, Mid 20th Century" Yet, though shot entirely on finely crafted, but ultimately phony film sets, the effect achieved manages to be truer than any merely physical reality, and every scene evinces fundamental aspects of the frustration and malice of race prejudice and inequality.
Ethel Barrymore, as crumudgeonly cantankerous Mistress/Benefactor/friend Miss Em and Ethel Waters, as kindly, ever-positive servant/caregiver/companion Aunt Dicey are in their elements and steal the show, As Aunt D says when Pinky refers to "knowing her place" with "Missus.Em": "There's no knowing place between friends." even though their places are a faded ante-bellum mansion and a poor tumble-down shack, respectively. Both Ethels grabbed best supporting Oscar noms, Waters being the second actor of color to be so honored.
The plot includes horrifying incidents of racial abuse, and a frightening scene of a kangaroo court when colored Pinky dares to assert her right to the estate rich ole white lady Miss Em has left her, which, according to long-standing southern tradition, Just Isn't Done!
Fortunately, though unlikely in real life, there's a Hollywood happy ending here in which Pinky is finally content living "Her Truth"
Nothing against Miss Crain, who the Academy recognized in the best actress category for this performance, but this was another role in which Lena Horne would have KILLED, denied her due to the necessity of engaging in love scenes with a WHITE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they could slap Max Factor "Light Egyptian" all over Ava Gardner for "Showboat", they should've slapped Elizabeth Arden "Lily White" all over Lena and LET 'ER RIP! . .
Still should be seen
Pinky is a "colored" southern woman who passes for white (Jeanne Crain, who had no trouble passing for white, considering), goes north, gets a nursing degree, falls in love with a (white) doctor, then goes back home when she finds it impossible to tell him her "terrible truth"
The story is presented as a "Moral Fable" and as such seems taken from a series of latter-day lithographs entitled "Scenes from the Segregated South, Mid 20th Century" Yet, though shot entirely on finely crafted, but ultimately phony film sets, the effect achieved manages to be truer than any merely physical reality, and every scene evinces fundamental aspects of the frustration and malice of race prejudice and inequality.
Ethel Barrymore, as crumudgeonly cantankerous Mistress/Benefactor/friend Miss Em and Ethel Waters, as kindly, ever-positive servant/caregiver/companion Aunt Dicey are in their elements and steal the show, As Aunt D says when Pinky refers to "knowing her place" with "Missus.Em": "There's no knowing place between friends." even though their places are a faded ante-bellum mansion and a poor tumble-down shack, respectively. Both Ethels grabbed best supporting Oscar noms, Waters being the second actor of color to be so honored.
The plot includes horrifying incidents of racial abuse, and a frightening scene of a kangaroo court when colored Pinky dares to assert her right to the estate rich ole white lady Miss Em has left her, which, according to long-standing southern tradition, Just Isn't Done!
Fortunately, though unlikely in real life, there's a Hollywood happy ending here in which Pinky is finally content living "Her Truth"
Nothing against Miss Crain, who the Academy recognized in the best actress category for this performance, but this was another role in which Lena Horne would have KILLED, denied her due to the necessity of engaging in love scenes with a WHITE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they could slap Max Factor "Light Egyptian" all over Ava Gardner for "Showboat", they should've slapped Elizabeth Arden "Lily White" all over Lena and LET 'ER RIP! . .
Still should be seen