Carmen Jones

Harry Belafonte is receiving this year's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy. His film career has been spotty--he's better known as a singer and recording artist. His one major film role was one of his first--in 1954's Carmen Jones, directed by Otto Preminger.

The film was based on the stage musical, in which Oscar Hammerstein II took George Bizet's opera and set it during wartime with a all-black cast. As the seductive Carmen, Dorothy Dandridge received an Oscar nomination, but I don't think the film ever really gels, and constantly seems to be trying, and not succeeding, at justifying its existence.

We begin at an army base and parachute factory in the south. Joe, a corporal (Belafonte) is ready to go to flying school and marry his hometown sweetheart. But, in a classic moment of bad timing, he is forced by his sergeant to transport Dandridge to prison after she starts a fight (she is one of the parachute workers). She throws herself at Belafonte, and slowly lessens his resolve. She escapes from him, but not before spending an evening of passion. He ends up in the stockade, and starts his precipitous decline.

Belafonte and Dandridge are in love, but its not good for him, as she constantly gets him into further trouble. Defending her honor, he punches out his sergeant, and has to go AWOL. They head to Chicago, where she is pursued by a boxer. She eventually takes up with the boxer, and Belafonte goes crazy. Tragedy ensues.

The best thing about this film is Bizet's music. I know almost nothing about opera, but it has three themes that I instantly recognize: the Overture, "Habanera" (an aria sung by Carmen--you've heard it too, even if you don't know the name) and "The Toreador Song," which in the opera is sung by a bullfighter. Hammerstein made the bullfighter a boxer, and lyrically it works.

What doesn't work is the pacing of the film and the chemistry between Belafonte and Dandridge. She's bad news, and it's hard to imagine he could be that stupid that consistently. I know men can really lose their minds when it comes to a beautiful woman, but man she must have had some mojo to get him to be this reckless.

I will give everyone involved credit for thinking an all-black musical had a place in our society in 1954. I do believe there is not white actor in the film, and we get to see some of the talent that was around then, including future stars like Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll.

But, the main stars, though they were singers, are dubbed by real opera singers (Dandridge was dubbed by Marilyn Horne) so that kind of defeats the purpose. Carmen Jones is an odd duck of a film--I wish it were better.