USA
1954/35mm/105mins
SATURDAY 29 OCTOBER 2.15 pm – BUY!
This famous adaptation of the Broadway hit version of Bizet’s opera shifts the story to the Korean War and made stars of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge.
With an all-African-American cast and re-visioned as a steamy fable of a deadly affair between a North Carolina parachute factory worker and US Airforce trainee, producer/director Otto Preminger’s take on Bizet was unsurprisingly hard to fund in mid-1950s Hollywood. But the real battles proved to be with the censors who warned of the script’s ‘over-emphasis on lustfulness’. Carmen Jones was – and is still – a milestone, and would bring Dorothy Dandridge to stardom after 15 years of bit parts and African-American segregated market B-movies. Future Footloose director Herbert Ross’s dance moves struck a new relationship between camera and choreography, and fresh Broadway star Harry Belafonte joined an all-star line-up that included Brock Peters, Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll.
Golden Globe – Best Musical or Comedy;
Berlin Film Festival – Best Director.
“An opulent production” Variety
“Dandridge delivers Carmen sultry and insolent – she is still one of the best Carmen’s on film” David Thomson, Have You Seen …?
Producer / Director Otto Preminger Writer Harry Kleiner, based on a libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II Cast Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll
Print Source Courtesy the British Film Institute.
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Where can I buy CD