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.
