Word: filming
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Producer Louis de Rochemont, who unearthed this somber bit of Americana in the neighborhood of his New England home and passed it on to Reader's Digest, the story was a natural. Past master of the documentary film (MARCH OF TIME, Fighting Lady, etc.) and a vocal opponent of Hollywood's sound stage techniques, De Rochemont set to work on location in Portsmouth, N.H. For his cast he recruited a handful of relatively unknown actors and a group of Portsmouth citizens. For sets he used what "was ready to hand: the chaste interiors of Portsmouth homes...
...result (at a cost of under $500,000) is not only a first-class social document, but also a profoundly moving film. Dr. Carter (Mel Ferrer) and his wife (Beatrice Pearson) are forced into passing as whites so that he can practice his profession. But he keeps clandestine contact with his Negro colleagues, names his son (Richard Hylton) after a famous Negro doctor. Out of these contacts emerge some fresh insight into Negro viewpoints, and into the intricate network of etiquette and anguish separating those who can "pass" from those who cannot...
Dramatically, the film loses ground by its episodic, rigidly chronological story treatment, but the loss is more than regained in a powerful climax and several excellent performances. As Dr. Carter, Mel Ferrer gives a sensitive interpretation of a decent man caught in an indecent dilemma. Richard Hylton, in his first screen appearance, plays the difficult role of Carter's son with ease and assurance. Outstanding bit-player is the Rev. Robert Dunn, real-life rector of Portsmouth's St. John's Episcopal Church. His screenplay sermon on tolerance is a little masterpiece of low-keyed natural eloquence...
Roughshod (RKO Radio) is a modest little film which offers several minor but pleasant surprises. It is a western, but it is hardly recognizable as such, since it was filmed in black & white against a landscape not even remotely resembling a Grand National Park. Its story is peopled mostly by quiet, plausible characters who engage in no horsy heroics and in only one shooting fracas. In fact, its hero (Robert Sterling) openly confesses to a distaste for manslaughter...
Home of the Brave. An outspoken anti-prejudice film about the crackup of a Negro G.I. (TIME...