Pinky

Although it was controversial at the time, 'Pinky' is very highly regarded by most now. And rightly so. The cast is a great one, the most familiar cast member to me being Ethel Barrymore. Have said elsewhere about my high admiration for Elia Kazan and most of his films. 'Pinky' was most intriguing to me though for its subject of racism and bigotry, it was a very relevant theme at the time and very prominent and was very brave to address on film and sadly it is still.

'Pinky' turned out to be a great film, with so many brilliantly done things. Not quite one of Kazan's very finest, but close to being up there and close to being a near-classic. Really appreciated that it did tackle a subject like this, a topical one and important to address despite it hitting so close to home for many at the time and now, and appreciated even more so how it tackled it. Even if 'Pinky' isn't one of Kazan's best, it is one of his most sincere films and a contender for the bravest in a filmography where all the themes in all his films were quite courageously heavy and complex.

The production values are very high, lots of atmosphere in the art direction enhanced by the quite beautiful cinematography. Kazan's direction never feels self-indulgent or heavy-handed, and he seemed like he was at ease with the material and like he knew what he wanted to do with it. Alfred Newman always was a great film composer, one of the best at the time and his style was a distinctive one, one that was always sumptuous and stirring without ever over-bearing the atmosphere. That's the case here in 'Pinky'.

Moreover, 'Pinky' is sensitively scripted, making its points without hammering home. The dialogue was intelligently written and concise enough to not feeling too rambling. The story is a very emotionally powerful one, one that really hits hard and makes for unflinching viewing. Yet doing so without being prejudicial or one-sided, or with a complete lack of subtlety, actually being done with a lot of poignant sincerity that helps make it a real tear-jerker of a film. It is not "outdated" at all in my view, the subject was very relevant back then and sadly it still is, it is also one that has always been bold to portray on film and worthy of admiration whenever it is regardless of its execution.

Characters are well realised and don't seem like one-dimensional stereotypes sugar-coated or ham-fisted. Coming over like real human beings. The uniformly fine performances help, while Jeanne Crain is very moving and gives one of her best performances it's a magnificent Ethel Waters that comes off strongest.

Weak link, the only one really, is the very easily foreseeable and too tidily tied up ending.

Overall, exceptionally well done and very brave. 9/10

Black people "passing for white" was not a new topic for Hollywood in 1949. It was part of the plot of "Imitation of Life" in 1934, but in that film, an actual black actress, Fredi Washington, played the role of the young woman who "passes" in the white world. In 1949, there were two films dealing with this issue: "Pinky" and "Lost Boundaries," and in both cases, the black person was played by a white actor.

"Pinky" stars Jeanne Crain as Pinky Johnson, a black woman who looks white, so much so that she when she studies nursing in New York, she easily enters the white world and becomes involved with a white doctor who wants to marry her. Needing time to think over her situation, she returns home, which is a shack where her grandmother (Ethel Waters) lives in a black section of their southern town. There she is reminded of the prejudice and cruelty she left. When her grandmother asks her to care for an elderly white woman (Ethel Barrymore), hostility between patient and nurse leads to an uneasy bond.

This is a brilliant film all the way, magnificently directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, who loved taking on these controversial social issues. The acting is superb: Jeanne Crain gives the best performance of her career as a woman who comes to grips with her true identity. She is so dignified as she walks through the town, soft-spoken yet strong, refusing to come down to the level of those around her. Ethel Barrymore is the elderly terminally ill woman Pinky reluctantly agrees to care for, and she nearly steals the movie with a no-nonsense performance. She's a woman set in her ways and opinions, but she's fair person who can see the human soul. It's probably the best drawn character in the film.

As a teen-aged fan of "Route 66," I can well remember the publicity around the show when Ethel Waters guest-starred. Of course white teens in the '60s had no idea of who she was or the circumstances of her life and career. Yet to this day I can remember her on that show. Forty years later, thankfully, I have an appreciation of her place in history and her work. Waters gives a powerful performance. Her character has accepted her lot in life but sacrifices everything so that her grandchild can have a better one. In her world, white men have the power, and you can clearly see her belief manifested in her courtroom demeanor.

The casting of Jeanne Crain is a sticking point here but not really when looked at in the context of the 1940s. Even with this casting, this is a bold movie, uncompromising in its depiction of white attitudes and racial slurs. It is just a pity that at the time of the filming, Fredi Washington was 45 years old and actually no longer in films. Washington looked so white that she was told by producers that if she would agree to "pass" and play white roles, she could have a career equal to that of Norma Shearer. She refused, and in order to play black women, she had to darken her skin. Lena Horne was deemed not white-looking enough. I suggest that the same is true for the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge. There may have been black actresses who looked white enough to play this role, but would anyone have answered such a casting call? Most importantly, "Pinky" would not have been made without Jeanne Crain, because Zanuck wanted her to do it, and it's a film that deserved making. The other sticking point in the film is Pinky's fiancée, a white doctor. His easy acceptance of her as black - and the fact that she kept it from him - is a weakness in the script. This was done perhaps to highlight that he wanted to her to continue to pass for white, therefore making it clear that Pinky has to the make the decision, but the scenario does not seem believable.

You can predict the ending of "Pinky," and despite complaints that it's a typically neat Hollywood one, I found it immensely satisfying as I found the entire experience of watching this truly classic film, "Pinky."

I've never wanted to watch "Pinky" because of my own prejudices.

Jeanne Crain? Beautiful but mediocre actress. (The weak link, so I thought, in "A Letter to Three Wives.") A film about racial predicaments circa 1949, falling between "Imitation of Life" (Claudette Colbert, 1934) and Lana Turner's (1959) and Douglas Sirk's classic glossy tearjerker of the same title? Who cares about "Pinky?"

Turns out (now that I've seen it), like most prejudices, I was wrong about everything.

It's all in the story and the script, as usual.

"Pinky" bypasses every sudsy cliché of "Imitation of Life" in either incarnation and proceeds directly to the heart of characters far more real, and a story far more incisive, deeply conceived and developed, than Edna Ferber or Ross Hunter ever imagined.

The wonderful revelation of "Pinky," among many, is that Jeanne Crain could act.

Elia Kazan's acute direction elevates Crain and everybody else. Ethel Waters, Ethel Barrymore, William Lundigan? The supporting players? Flawless.

Shot and lit on sound stages, "Pinky" looks completely artificial by today's naturalistic standards. In its day, the studio stylization wasn't given a second thought. Painted cycloramas, fake Spanish moss, brilliant "mood" lighting, "classic" cinematography and all.

Yet you're almost immediately lost and involved in the plot, which NEVER takes you where you expect.

The entrance of Ethel Barrymore's character, for her brief duration in the story, is quietly amazing. Hers is the pivotal role upon which all else hinges. She realistically underplays every moment – only once ever leaving her deathbed.

Even prone, as an actress, Barrymore makes mincemeat of the rest. Not a false note nor strained effect, nothing overwrought, no begging for sympathy . . . just the character. Listen to the simple naturalistic throwaway variety in her breathing and inflections!

Same for Ethel Waters. Utter, believable simplicity and economy, always in character. Watch her eyes. (Offscreen and offstage, she could be a something of a monster, according to those who worked with her, though she always piously crossed herself before entering from the wings.) William Lundigan and every other supporting actor rises to the occasion.

But it's Jeanne Crain who is the revelation. She was deservedly nominated for an Academy Award for this performance.

Yes, she's beautiful. Yes, she's constantly artificially lit. Yes, she's photographed from all the right angles. But within those cinematic constraints of the times, she gives a truly honest, strong, intelligent and forceful performance as Pinky.

As Ethel Waters' granddaughter, that's next to genetically impossible and implausible for Jeanne Crain.

But she does it. You forget the "star" artifice in five minutes and she steadfastly carries the film. (Compare this to her somewhat "actory" though still delightful portrayal in "Letter to Three Wives.")

"Pinky's" plot turns out to be far richer and more nuanced than the expected, "She passed for white," claptrap (still tear-duct manipulative and effective) of either version of "Imitation of Life."

And no film explores to more devastating emotional effect the tragedy of race prejudice in the south than, "To Kill a Mockingbird."

But "Pinky" is the adult, intelligent and perhaps best plotted, if not best scripted, of them all, because it eschews sensational interracial rape and murder ("Mockingbird") for more mundane but still heartbreaking human relationships and realistic consequences, given the period.

It's a shame Jeanne Crain was never given an equal script or director to fulfill her talents.

But there's "Pinky," and any actress would be proud.

We'll know we've "arrived" when people can get past the casting of Jeanne Crain as a woman of color. There ARE mixed race women who are as light as Jeanne Crain, but because of the "one drop rule," in 1949 they were, and often still today are -considered "black." In today's multi-cultural society these women often embrace their heritage, but the issues they face remain sadly the same today in many facets. Example: African Americans who are educated are often told they are "talking white."

There is a reason that "she's passing" became an understood term. Very light skinned women & men in the early part of the 1900s DID try to do what Pinky here does.

I was really encouraged to see the scene with Nina Mae McKinney next to Frederick O'Neal, next to Jeanne Crain, all playing "black folks." THAT is the reality of miscegenation in the South, and that is what people still have trouble with: sometimes race is not just black and white. It is uncomfortable and true. (McKinney is marvelous, and fills every second of her screen time, whether she is removing a pebble from her shoe or coyly playing piano on top of a fence.)

I sadly find this film completely relevant today. These conversations of segregation and intermarriage are STILL going strong. There are African Americans who talk about "white women taking our men" or people of all races saying, "stay with your own race." This is segregationist, this is racist, and it still exists very strongly in all racial communities.

Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne- both beautiful & talented - are often mentioned as possible contenders for this role. They simply were NOT light enough to pass for white, it hampered their careers, and they have both acknowledged that. Hollywood in general likes their races obvious, casting is still largely done by type and stereotype, no matter what race – even today it would be hard to find an actress of stature who identifies herself as black, but who can totally pass as white; the market doesn't hire these women.

Type casting is still the norm. Even my dark skinned actress friends have been told they don't "talk black enough" in auditions. Ethel Waters and Ethel Barrimore here, both fine actresses at the top of their game, were both type cast here in roles that they've basically played several times before; it is only the script context that made this special.

Jeanne Crain had enormous courage to portray this role. Not only is she perpetually faulted for being a white woman playing this role, but she risked her career, some people questioned her heritage in a racist age. That is a tribute to the reality and sensitivity she brought to the role, and her acting, which is often maligned because she had reserve. Her "under acting" is actually the preferred style today in TV and film. She was ahead of her time.

Part of why Crain is not liked much today is that she was a 40s type that is not valued today. Restrained, ladylike, mature in mindset, "high minded" - this is what she represented, and these things are not looked for in leading ladies today. What she represents has gone out of fashion; it was going out of fashion even then, and Kazan valued grittier, dirtier types like Brando. Kazan, who initially labeled her an impassive beauty queen, eventually credited her fine work.

This movie is sensitively done in all respects with really great performances top to bottom. It is not glossy or simple, neither race is solely good or solely bad. It is a disservice to have the only DVD commentary done by someone who clearly still does not like the film and doesn't appreciate the complexity of Crain's work here. That a New Yorker thought the court trial didn't look real because people were all fanning themselves shows he has never spent time in the south in a public gathering place.

This film is galling and aggravating, and unfortunately still very real. This is not a fun film, it is a great film, that speaks just as much to attitudes held today as it did then.

It is not very "in" to like Elia Kazan right now, because he named names in the McCarthy witch-hunts and just received an honorary Oscar, but what a brilliant director he was. And if he didn't show much courage in the Fifties, he sure did in the Forties when he tackled racial prejudice head-on in two excellent movies: "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Pinky" (John Ford is said to have chickened-out of directing this one). "Pinky" is not as good as "Gentleman's Agreement", but it ain't half bad either. Here we see a deeply prejudiced South where black girls are attacked on the streets and shops refuse them service. The scenes are realistic, even brutally filmed, and the language strong for its day.

I'm sure Kazan must have been dismayed to have been given a Hollywood starlet to play the complex lead character - a black woman who looks white - but he managed to extract a damn good performance out of Jeanne Crain. The supporting cast is flawless, down to the smallest role. Kazan knew how to direct actors. Evelyn Varden deserves special mention as a vicious Southern matron. But the most praise must be reserved for the two Ethels - Waters and Barrymore - who are nothing short of brilliant.

Okay, the ending's a little dicky, and predictable, but the intentions of the film-makers are sincere and the results must have been revolutionary in 1949. I love the way Kazan shoots his movies too - long unbroken sequences and tracking shots, and excellent use of light and shadow - both of which probably coming from his stage experience. Kazan combined a strong ability to work with actors and a keen cinematic eye to create some of the best dramatic films of the century. And "Pinky" is one of these.