"Pinky" Race Drama Still Packs a Punch 1949

The very fact that the lead character is played by a white actress tells you everything you need to know about this " message picture". It's an old story- dealt with better in the first " Imitation of Life " than the second version, or this movie. If you are a light- skinned black person- who can pass for white- living in a racist culture do you allow yourself the luxury of letting people assume you are white? The white audience wants to hear it's a sin and a fraud. The black audience just wants to be heard and seen in a proper and real construct. The film seems to say you can't run away from who you are if you are black in America, even a drop. We have yet to see a film where Asians, or Latins are running away from their skin color. As a black man who grew with this issue in my family I would say run to the nearest fraud. Color is a fraud to began with. If you can get away with it try. You know you will be treated far better in the long run. That's America. And if you have any doubt about that ask Carol Channing, or Johnny Cash's first wife.

The performances are good. One wouldn't expect less from Ethel Waters or the great Ms. Barrymore. Jeanne Crain only has two great movies to her credit- " A Letter to Three Wives"( released the same year as ' Pinky") and " People Will Talk". In all of her other films, including this one, she at times appears bored, aloof, and vacant.

She's great in Margie as well.

What about Cheaper by the Dozen?

No light skinned black woman was gonna play love scene with no white man in 1949!

Pinky is on TCM tonight at 8 pm/ET. Here's a free excellent copy of the film from YouTube.

This is your first and only post, OP- are you new here?

She was good in Jeanne's 22 load weekend.

I find Jeanne Craine as dull as dishwater and am not a fan of Ethel Barrymore either. But I got the DVD for the audio commentary by Kenneth Geist. He's great.

I’m always drawn to any movie with Miss Ethel Barrymore. While some find her mid-Atlantic stage dialect phony, to me it is always like a fine viola and always a in the service of character. I also find her subtle and convincingly naturalistic for someone who started during the height of melodrama. Waters is always touching and strong. Either would have been deserving of the BSA, but they cancelled each other and Mercedes McCambridge was a force not to be denied. Her Sadie Burke was astonishing. Crain was perfectly fine and did what the script asked, but just wasn’t very inspiring. The film is rather dull (maybe less so in 1949), given the topic. But I’ve always felt that way about Gentleman’s Agreement. Both are tasteful agit-prop “problem movies” you could Grandma to. At least Pinky didn’t have the always smug Celeste Holm in it.

That’s Oscar winner Celeste Holm to you!

R9=Bette Davis

No way would Dorothy Dandridge be right for the role of Pinky. She was light skinned but her African origins are obvious. Linda Darnell would have been a good choice. And yeah, it is kind of dated, but pretty groundbreaking for its time. But it's obvious it, like many "mainstream" films dealing with race, was made to accommodate the feelings of the majority. Same with other "race problem" films of the late forties and early fifties.

They should have gotten Grace Kelly

Is playing " Pinky" a black job?

No. It would be a Black job—your attempt at sarcasm is a fail.

back then it was a colored job.

Kenneth Geist talks about how Kazan had a hellavu time getting a performance from Jeanne Crain.

We tested Carol Channing, but on film she appeared grotesque and clownish.

She still got Clint as a love interest, r18.

In the book, "Quality," that "Pinky" was derived from, Miss Em leaves Pinky her estate because her white brother was Pinky's father. Has anyone read the book, by Cid Ricketts Sumner?

Lena Horne told the story of how SHE wanted to play PINKY, during her 1981 Broadway concert. Funny as hell.

Yeah like Lena Horne playing Julie in Show Boat and everyone being shocked that she had any black blood in her.

Lena bullshitted a lot in her one woman show - the entire “Lena Horne” in that show was BS. She was never considered for Show Boat or Pinky. Lena never talked like that either, guess she dumbed herself down to appear blacker circa 1981-84.

Was it any relation to the pre-Code classic, "Stinky Pinky" starring Helen Lawson?

Evelyn Varden was right up there with Sister Woman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as an odious southern relative, Melba Wooley! And in the '50s, she played another memorably named hag, Monica Breedlove, in The Bad Seed...

Jeanne Craine--ugh! Can't stand her in anything. She was always a cheap knock-off of Paulette Goddard for me.

You told us that already ..,

The theme tune became a hit for Sarah Vaughan. It's not a song because she sings it a cappella.