• Carmen Jones

2/19/22 (Sat)

Otto Preminger’s 1954 film was based on Oscar Hammerstein II’s transformation of Carmen into an all-black Broadway musical that had enjoyed a healthy run back in 1943 (just after the opening of his blockbuster Oklahoma!). He had reset the show from a tobacco factory in 19th-century Seville to a Chicago parachute factory during WWII, with the story otherwise closely paralleling the original in an adept English translation. A fabulous off Broadway production in 2018 ended far too soon without transferring, which is Broadway’s loss, but it did demonstrate that the material (other than its unfortunate “black” vernacular, which can easily be stripped away) remains vital today. I wish the Encores! series had chosen this as their black-oriented piece in this year’s lineup instead of the vastly inferior Tap Dance Kid and The Life. How great would it be to hear Bizet’s score in this Americanized setting with the full Encores orchestra?

Preminger did not simply re-stage the musical but substantially rewrote the book, eliminating a good deal of the music along the way in apparent hope of creating a drama with occasional music as opposed to a musical. Not sure he succeeded at that, but he did a terrific job of making the material work for the screen. It was one of the first serious musical vehicles for blacks after years of (highly entertaining) fluff like Stormy Weather, with a more universal theme than the usual poverty or discrimination and more dignified characters; compare this to Preminger’s next black musical, Porgy and Bess. His Carmen, played by a sensational Dorothy Dandridge, is sultry, smart and supremely confident from the moment she swaggers into the opening scene, completely dominating the film and everyone in it. Everything from her casual conquest of Joe to her ultimate rejection of him for the sake of her independence are perfectly drawn and performed, a bird that can’t be caged indeed (a la the original “Habanera”). Moreover, the musical numbers are colorfully staged, and the director’s crowd scenes are vivid and real, most notably the wild catfight among the girls, the exuberant scene in the bar, and the boxing match.

Not everything is at that level: some of the characterizations, especially Joe’s clueless girlfriend Cindy Lou, are mere sketches, and the murder scene at the end was a big disappointment after the starker portrayals of violence earlier. In addition, with one significant exception (below), there is little “black” about the show as presented here other than some occasional outdated language and the complete lack of whites and other ethnicities throughout even in Chicago street scenes. I’m not sure if the German-born Preminger was consciously tiptoeing around the material to avoid angering the black community (he had the script approved in advance by the NAACP), but it does seem a waste to go to this length to use an all-black cast without a suggestion of black culture. The material as presented here could be recast in an all-white version and work just as well. In that sense, James Baldwin’s famous criticism of the movie for its treatment of blacks as primitive and sex-driven seems utterly misplaced, especially as it pretty much replicates the Spanish characters in the original.

In any case, the film gets the big things right and makes the drama completely believable. The director has added entirely new material for his expanded canvas, such as the car scene and the boxing match, that fits the story like a glove. The musical scenes are nicely integrated with the material and handled with great skill, starting with a sizzling “Dat’s Love” (“Habanera”). Story-wise, this is a model of how to transfer a stage show to the screen.

The voices are almost all dubbed, even for stars Dandridge and Harry Belafonte, who were both accomplished singers. The director evidently wanted a more operatic sound, but that shows a lack of imagination for a work rewritten as a Broadway musical. It’s especially odd for Belafonte given his distinctive voice. That said, it’s churlish to complain given the exceptionally high level of singing throughout. The scoring was nominated for an Oscar, losing to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (fair enough). Dandridge is dubbed by a teenaged Marilyn Horne, later a noted Carmen herself.

The best single feature of the film is Dandridge, far and away the greatest Carmen I’ve seen in any iteration of the show. Her seduction of Joe in the car, the way she has him blow on her toes to dry the nail polish, her calculating look when her friends try to persuade her to dump Joe and go for the money, her defiance when Joe tries to order her around – it’s hard to pick a favorite scene. It was completely understandable how every man who set eyes on her fell for her (including the director, who had an affair with her lasting several years). Her Oscar nomination for Best Actress – the first ever accorded a black woman – was well deserved. She lost to Grace Kelly but shouldn’t have. An extremely self-assured portrayal from start to finish. Bravissima.

Dandridge’s only match on the screen, and the only real “black” portrayal, was the inimitable Pearl Bailey having a ball as Carmen’s good friend. She performed, spoke and (in an exception to the rule elsewhere) sang in her own unmistakable voice, creating a distinctive personality that stood out from the stock characters elsewhere. Her boisterous street-talk line delivery was from a different film than the others, a taste of what might have been if the director had been more ambitious. Additionally, her “Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum” was an utter delight and the film’s best musical sequence. She was essentially playing herself, as always, but she does it well. I would have liked more of that.

Belafonte was not overly exciting as Joe but looked the part; maybe that shirtless solo was thrown in to overcome the bland acting. Joe Adams and Brock Peters gave strong performances respectively as the horny boxer Husky Miller and Joe’s commanding officer, and Roy Glenn (who was interestingly dubbed by his co-star Peters) was well cast as Husky’s manager. A very young Diahann Carroll is lovely but doesn’t stand a chance against the scene-stealing Pearl, while Olga James, the only other actress allowed to sing her own songs, was lost in the underwritten role of Joe’s naïve Southern girlfriend.

The widescreen format looks great, and the show’s theatrical roots are not evident at all in this re-imagining. I hadn’t expected something of this caliber. Strongly recommended.