• Purlie Victorious (Gone Are the Days!)

9/29/23 (Fri)

This 1963 film, which I never knew existed, popped up when I was checking out articles about the present Broadway revival. It’s a film of the Broadway original from two years earlier with many of the members of the original cast, including writer Ossie Davis and his wife Ruby Dee. It’s nominally about a black preacher in Georgia who recruits a random woman from Dothan to impersonate his late cousin in order to win an inheritance, figuring the white guy in control of the funds won’t be able to tell the women apart. Naturally events soon spin out of control. But as with any good satire, it’s about a lot more than its story.

The low-budget production never really shakes off its theatrical roots. Most of the action takes place in just two locations, and there are numerous single-take scenes that must have come straight from the play. The initial set actually splits into two as if on stage to move into the following scene rather than the usual dissolve. Davis and Dee were terrific, but the acting elsewhere could be over-the-top; Godfrey Cambridge’s Amos-and-Andy-like take in particular seemed from another era, as if he were performing in black face. Sorrell Brooke also played very broadly, though his bumbling character was less offensive and worked better. Alan Alda, repeating his stage performance, makes his film debut here as an idealistic ah-shucks kind of hick.

The material is never preachy even with a preacher at its core, using ridicule as its main weapon. That applies to the black characters as well as the white, so the satire is evenly spread. The black preacher’s celebration of the Constitution as a document for all citizens and his explicit declaration to create an integrated church are refreshing these days, when anger is the dominant emotion rather than love and forgiveness.

Despite its black authorship and some memorable lines (“Being colored can be lovely when there ain’t nobody looking”), the material can be dated, and I’m amazed that someone had the courage to put this material on stage right now, including the resolution by the white savior. Still, it’s an enjoyable piece that makes its point lightly. I’m eager to watch the revival to see how they’ve dealt with the less-PC parts.