From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Carmen Jones released in 1954.
Starring:
Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey
Directed by:
Otto Preminger
Genre:
Drama, Musical, Romance
Rating:
Approved
Budget:
$750,000 (estimated)
IMDb Rating is currently:
6.9
My Rating:
7.8
The Synopsis is:
At an all-black army camp, during the second world war, civilian parachute maker Carmen Jones successfully gets the attention of a young corporal with high hopes to become a pilot, Joe and a Prize fighter by the name of Husky Miller creating a very deadly love triangle.
Enjoyment:
I love this movie. I saw this film in the 1980’s, nearly 30 years after this film was made and it really spoke to me as a film that took a fancy spin on an opera.
It was groundbreaking for being one of the only all black cast movie in a time when segregation was a prominent part of our history in america in 1954.
And for me, I’m a fan of these old early films with African American actors, because they paved the way for so many actors today who bring a great contribution to cinema.
I’ve always enjoyed Carmen the opera and admired the spunk of the lead female character, but I also enjoy modern interpretations of it too. It’s a timeless story of love gone wrong.
Pacing:
At 1h 45min, it’s typical of the musicals of the time, and while it’s fascinating to see every aspect of the film, it does take a long time to get going. And I think that it is because the movie is following the script of the opera, maybe a little closer than it should.
Story:
Carmen began as an opera by Bizet in 1845. In 1943 a stage production of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II emerged and sprung the attention of Otto Preminger who had and interest in modifying the play and opera with the screenplay being written by Harry Kleiner to make "a dramatic film with music rather than a conventional film musical,".
Songs from the Bizet opera would sung by operatic singers with modernized lyrics.
Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck offered to finance the film while allowing Preminger to operate as an independent filmmaker with a budget of $750,000.
The office of the Motion Picture Production Code cited problems with the film because of an "over-emphasis on lustfulness" "any voice of morality” and “Carmen's complete lack of morals." The office also urged to submit the script to the NAACP, who had no objection to it.
This film was clearly pushing the envelope for it’s time.
Challenge:
The challenge is a hard thing to describe except, miscommunication. Many Operas run through this very same theme and there are no real villains except the temptation to do things characters weren’t interested in doing on their own.
Carmen could be considered a villain because right away she is a wild irresponsible girl looking for fun. She’s wild and feral. There really isn’t anything wrong with that, but what makes her a villain is that she doesn’t care who she hurts or destroys to do it.
She begins the film lusting after a military guy by the name of Joe that is engaged to Cindy Lou. She pretty much seduces him in order to escape military confinement and then leaves him high and dry.
Joe gets in trouble with the army and thrown in jail. When he does his time and figures out a way to make things right, it is Carmen’s manipulation that causes Joe to leave the military to run away with her.
She is morally inept during most of the film, until the short time she appears to be in love with Joe.
In the meantime, Carmen catches the eye of prize fighter, Husky Miller, who dispatches all of his power to lure her to his camp. But she’s really is in love with Joe.
There is a scene where she sacrifices some of her jewelry at a pawn shop to pay for some things so they can get by and the sweet guy, Joe becomes a jealous raving lunatic, thinking the worst of her.
When she decides she doesn’t want to be with Joe anymore it is mainly because he doesn’t trust her, with good reason. She had already left him once before.
It's a miscommunication, but just when you think, why doesn’t she tell him what she did, proving her willingness to give their love an honest try.
She is more interested in setting Joe straight about her freedom. She is triggered, because the one thing that she has be saying all along is that she doesn’t want to be locked up. And Joe's possessiveness pushes Carmen to leave him.
At first, I think it was just going to be a night out with her old friends and the prize fighter, but what pushes Carmen off the deep end to abandon Joe is when she reads her fortune and it tells her that she is going to die. She’s really superstitious, to the point, she lets it rule her life. It is the one thing that Carmen allows herself to be imprisoned by.
Instead of spending the rest of her life quietly and peacefully with a man she loves, she decides to run off with Husky and live life in the fast lane until the end. And you can’t fault her for that entirely because, one has become a prison she created, and the other is scotch free.
However, her decision is a paradox. She dies because she leaves, she leaves because she knows she’s going to die.
Empathy:
Joe begins the story as a corporal with big dreams of being a pilot. He gets a visit from his girlfriend from home, Cindy Lou. In the beginning they are madly in love and in many ways their relationship makes sense.
Just when he was about to elope with Cindy Lou, he gets an assignment to take Carmen to town, all due to Carmen’s plotting and scheming. And that is when things go awry.
Carmen is like a tornado! She’s so manipulative and selfish, you don’t really feel sorry for her when she dies. But you do feel sorry for Joe, being driven mad, dragged into a life of imprisonment, when he could have been a pilot and married Cindy Lou if he had just stayed clear of Carmen.
But as we have Carmen abandoning Joe, we also have Joe abandoning Cindy Lou.
Technical:
Visually the film is good. There are a few studio car scenes with outdated effects, but it’s not bad. It does have a bit of a claustrophobic closeness to many of the rooms of sets that are featured in the film.
The film was really intended to be an opera and not a musical for the time. And operatic vocals were needed for the film.
Because of the vocal training that it takes to pull off this type of singing, many of the singing voices were dubbed by people other than the actors, which makes the singing moments a bit disjointed.
However, dubbing was not required for Pearl Bailey, whose own voice suited her comedic songs.
The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
In 1992, Carmen Jones was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Performances:
Harry Belafonte as Joe was phenomenal. He is a great actor. And even though he is lip syncing, at times you really feel as if he is the one who is singing. He really gave Joe a lot of heart and fire to his performance.
Dorothy Dandridge as Carmen Jones was electrifying, sultry, and spunky. She and Harry had a lot of onscreen chemistry that worked for the film.
There is a scene where she and Harry are jumping off a train and running through rocks down hill. That is really them doing this and they put everything into these performances. You can see real sweat coming from them.
In real life the two had a great friendship and starred in several movies together because they made such a good looking couple. I mean they just sizzle together, wow!
Dorothy Dandridge was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the first African American to be honored in the category, but unfortunately lost.
Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll were great. And other notable actors were, Olga James, Joe Adams, and Brock Peters.
Best:
The scene when Carmen discovers that her life will end soon. I just find that scene so emotionally fascinating. She chooses to live it more recklessly abusing it, thus creating the reason for her death. A loop of consequences. I suppose I just love paradoxes.
Wish List:
This is really nitpicking but, I wish the music was rearranged to be more of a musical, than just using the opera. It was an ambitious dream of Otto Preminger and it has to be admired for taking that risk.
I enjoy opera, but I think it would have enhanced the film if the actors could add their own musical attributes to the film and the famous musical chords from the opera could have been incorporated into the score.
The Ending:
The ending is tragic. And that is the trend of most operas, but in this case I think the audience gets the message of being wary of temptation.
Summary:
I really enjoy this old classic movie. It was groundbreaking in it’s time and it holds up in the only way a 1954 movie can. It’s dated, but it’s fun to look back on the fashions and tone of the era.
I am sometimes saddened that at that time the actors who were in this film really had a challenge on their hands with segregation and all of the psychological ramifications that entails along with trying to practice their craft. But even though that, the performances shine through as a testament to the power of the human spirit.
I am so glad that this story was given such grit no to try to portray Carmen as a “nice” girl to preserve some kind of image and let her be wild as she was intended to be in Bizet’s timeless classic.
The moral of the story is about temptation. So go to pilot school you fly boys!
That sums up my review. This is Retro Nerd Girl Signing off.
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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