Word: poitier
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...complacency is shattered, however, when Paul (Kenneth Polite), an impeccably dressed young man, stumbles into their apartment during an important dinner with a stab wound in his side. As the evening progresses, Paul claims to be a friend of their children's at Harvard and a son of Sidney Poitier. He charms everyone in sight with his elegant manner and profound literary insights. It is only when the Kittredges awake to find him sleeping with a male prostitute in the guest bedroom that his facade is shattered. Soon it becomes clear that Paul, whose real last name is never discovered...
...story of the wealthy and well-bred Kittredges, Ouisa (Stockard Channing) and Flan (Donald Sutherland), who are charmed by a young, Black con-artist (Will Smith) who bursts into their Upper East Side apartment claiming to be a friend of their college-age children and the son of Sidney Poitier. Paul (Smith) shatters the crystal palace of these New York sophisticates as he enters their lives unimpeded, proving how eager and willing they are to suspend disbelief in the hope of enlivening their rather cold and empty existences...
...Three Wives (1949) and won both those awards again for All About Eve (1950). He also directed one of the biggest film flops of all time: Cleopatra (1963, starring Elizabeth Taylor). But his cinematic successes were legion, and legendary: The Philadelphia Story (James Stewart), No Way Out (Sidney Poitier), Guys and Dolls (Marlon Brando), Suddenly Last Summer (Montgomery Clift), Woman of the Year (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) and more...
From the '50s onward, then, Hollywood began to move away from the bug-eyed, watermelon-eating portrayals of African-Americans that abounded in the '30s, introducing a wider variety of characters. As Stepin Fetchit became a phenomenon of the past, stars like Lena Horne and Sidney Poitier were born. Nevertheless, the roles available to Blacks were still basically tame--musicians, functionaries, and other characters that did little to challenge the status quo. The few movies that did have an edge to them were poorly distributed or received criticism for being too incendiary. For example, 20th Century Fox's controversial...
...period from the beginning of race movies through the era of Poitier and Belafonte are the subject of A Separate Cinema: Fifty Years of Black Cast Posters by John Kisch and Edward Mapp. This book is a glossy compilation of hundreds of posters used in promoting independent race movies and Hollywood features with an important African-American presence. Spike Lee offers an inconsequential preface that is thoroughly put to shame by the excellent introduction by Donald Bogle...