Lost Boundaries

Lost Boundaries (1949)

This affected me more than I would have expected. I mean, the changes in how we see race and "race relations" since 1949 are huge. The acting is really solid, if not searingly intense (which it has room for). And the narrative is complex enough with a few turning points to make it all interesting.

There is a sense as you watch that you're being shown a social issue and that the jury is already in. We know what we are supposed to feel, and we feel it. There is also a sense of something that doesn't happen much any more—the well known trick of "passing," which means being an African-American (usually) who is light skinned enough to "pass" as white. This is no small thing, since it required a social shift and truly living a "white" American's life, including both the advantages and the inner angst of having left behind your own roots.

So it's important stuff, and good stuff. And it was more compelling in its details and acting than you might think, being both socially loaded and a bit low budget. The production standards are high, however, and the results make it worth watching. I frankly did more than confirm what I already knew about the era and race in America. I realigned a little, feeling more than reminded, but also a little educated.

Yes, the approach here is outdated, and it ignores the true range of racism and hatred of the time, even in the supposedly enlightened New England setting here. But it has the truth woven into the stylized telling. If you think you already know all this, give it a look anyway. It's imprtant enough to try.

No need to detail the plot as others have done. On the whole, this is a very sincere and thoughtful production. Easy to say that by today's standards the film lacks honesty, especially by casting whites in the lead roles. However, I expect the production went as far as any commercial production of its time could in dealing with the emerging issue of race prejudice. Remember, much of the commercial audience was in the Jim Crow South, and I expect many theaters there refused its showing, (probably in the North too, only more subtly).

Besides, the effort to de-glamorize everyone and everything in the film, along with its location photography and varying sound quality, suggests that social conscience is what the film-makers were aiming for and not big box office. This was an independent production, far from the Hollywood glamor factory, even though the executive producer Louis de Rochemont had been a top producer at 20th Century Fox. I particularly like the way they used ordinary looking people in so many of the principal and supporting parts, especially the charming but plain-faced Susan Douglas and the equally charming but goofy-looking Carleton Carpenter. The ending too, is handled with a fair amount of honesty. especially the highly symbolic very last frame.

Too bad that this was precisely the kind of gritty little conscience film that disappeared from the screen following the Mc Carthy purges that loomed on the horizon. Even though the movie is now mainly of historical interest, it indicates the sort of challenging entertainment that was lost to the public during the Cold War decade of the 1950's. More than anything, it now needs to be shown more often, so that younger generations can get a definite sense of time, place, and attitudes, even if the actors are white.

Can you imagine Mel Ferrer as a Pullman porter in the 1940s? Neither can I. He doesn't play one but his character, who is a young doctor passing for white, says that if he let his race be known he might end up doing that.

This is (so we are told) a true story. The Ferrer character is given a break: He becomes the local doctor in a small New Hampshire town. His wife, also played by a white actress who therefore can very easily "pass for white" goes along with his charade.

(The actor playing their son as an adult is very good. His character becomes involved in an adventure -- what, I cannot say without giving away the plot. It is related in a noir fashion that both works and seems a little generic.) Possibly we're meant to be inspired. My main feeling about the choice this couple makes is that it is egregiously unfair to their two children. The kids don't know they are black.

It's a low-keyed story, generally well acted. I found it hard not to get caught up in the central characters' dilemma.) I'm not sure why but the casting didn't bother me so much as that of "Pinky." Maybe because "Pinky" is more self-congratulatory about touching such a daring topic. "Lost Boundaries" is really not a message movie. It tells a story and tells it well -- albeit a bit dishonestly

The topic of racial boundaries is explored in fine detail in this story about a light-skinned doctor and his family who all pass for white in a New England town. All points of view and opinions are represented. What makes this such a remarkable film is that it was made in 1949, hardly a year of profound social change in America when it came to the color line. This makes the movie that much more daring. A much better look at the topic of passing than either Pinkie or the second version of Imitation of Life (the first was quite extraordinary, and far superior). There are some really wonderful scenes including one at the town dance when the doctor's son brings home a dark-skinned black friend. The levels of acceptance and non-acceptance of the young black man are nuanced and played out beautifully.

The film suffers a tiny bit from hokey dialogue and mild melodrama, but that is more a result of the year it was made.

This film is loosely based on the experiences of Albert Johnston, a black physician who could pass for white, and his light skinned wife, also African American.

In the film, the protagonist is Dr. Scott Carter and his wife Marcia Carter. His wife's family has been passing for white their entire adult lives, and is not happy about Albert's decision to practice medicine openly, as a black man, for fear that the truth would come out about themselves.

So Carter gets an internship in Georgia at a black hospital, but is rejected there because he looks so white. He goes back to Boston - where he graduated and where his wife's family lives - and tries for internships in white hospitals as a black man, with no success. Then he finally decides to "pass" for white long enough to finish his internship, and gets one in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. While there he saves the life of a doctor whose father, the town doctor in Keenan, NH, has just died. That doctor recommends him to take over his father's practice, even after Scott confesses his true race to him.

Scott says this is only for a little while, until he can get some money in the bank and build a reputation, and then he will practice somewhere as a black doctor. Scott DOES build up the clinic in Boston open to all races named after a mentor with an old school buddy in his spare time. But time passes in Keenan. First a son is born then a daughter, both light skinned as their parents are, and although the reason is never given, it is probably because the Carters can give their children a life of opportunity that they could never give them if they were known to be black, that they continue the ruse for twenty years. Their son is attending a good college, their daughter is a typical teen with crushes and giggly friends. And then their secret gets out in a most unusual way.

This is a very well done film with good acting, direction, and production values, with it being shot on location in New England. The sequence where the teenage son is told his heritage is particularly poignant, with him looking in the mirror and at his arms and hands, like he is seeing himself for the first time. The original material actually focused on the son.

What is different about this film is that it is a tale of prejudice and what it takes to get around those prejudices in the north, where the opposition does not consist of organized violence and bullying and men on horseback with torches in the night. Instead it is quiet but firm social exclusion. And there are sympathetic white folks in the film - the preacher in Keenan, the doctor who gives Scott his big chance, and a cop in Harlem. But the societal boundaries that keep African Americans from succeeding and participating in all walks of life are still there.

Producer Louis De Rochemont was originally going to make this film with MGM, but there were creative differences. I can only imagine that Louis B. Mayer somehow wanted to make it into a musical . Instead, Rochemont put up his own money and made the cinema gem that is this film. Highly recommended.