High Yellow

This film begins with a light-skinned black teenager by the name of "Cynthia Wood" (Cynthia Hull) being greeted at the bus station by a chauffeur named "Joseph" (Bill McGhee) who is there to take her to her new place of employment as a maid working for an extremely rich family. Once there, she immediately discovers that the family she now works for has its share of problems with both the head of the household "Mr. Langley" (Bob Brown) and his wife "Mrs. Langley" (Annabelle Weenick) acting both rude and arrogant to her as soon as she is introduced. Also living in the house is their teenage daughter "Judy Langley" (Kay Taylor) who is quite spoiled but at least treats Cynthia with a certain amount of respect. But of all the family members, it is the adult son "George Langley" (Warren Hammock) who makes the best impression on her. The same, however, cannot be said for Mr. Langley live-in guest "Major Bates" (Bill Thurman) who is quite cruel and not only scares Cynthia but openly dislikes Judy--to the point that he often drinks himself into a violent rage. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I didn't expect too much from this rather low-budget film--especially since I had never even heard of it until fairly recently. However, having now seen it in its entirety, I can honestly say that I was somewhat impressed as it had a concise plot and good acting on the part of Cynthia Hull. Even so, the lack of financial resources was quite evident from the very start with both the overall script and the picture quality suffering as a result. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this to be a great picture by any means, I have to give the director (Larry Buchanan) credit for probably doing the best he could with so little and I have rated this film accordingly. Average.