Island in the Sun 1957

Just finished this valiant but bit stunted Hollywood production from the powerful producer Darryl F. Zanuck. Its a fairly respectful story of civil rights and labor class struggles in The Caribbean, featuring interracial commentary, very detailed direction and a fantastic cast including Joan Fontaine, Harry Bellafonte, James Mason, Dorothy Dandridge, Michael Rennie & a very young Joan Collins. But the film is way too shy in its radicalism. What could've been a huge platform for political reform and a hard defense of leftist ideas is a soft game of footsy from Hollywood intellectuals to an audience banking on their superior cultural dignity. Maybe I'm too cynical, but it felt too commercial to really deliver its message properly.

But I was very impressed technically by the structuring of subplots, preserved from the novel its based on I presume. The story sets up black vs white, rich vs poor, left vs right and gradually finds common ground for its very split audience. This was a great film in its day for the arena of glitzy escapist melodrama and cheap theatrics. It resists going that route and keeps a cool & realist pace of drama, which strengthens the tension and tragedy that builds. But I'm very intrigued by the morals of the film's ending. The right characters go punished, the expected congratulations are made and the status quo is maintained. Thats where the film fumbles.

I know they had to play to a post-war, working class white male demographic more than any other, but the film is about every other citizen in Western society, so the fact that his prejudices are preserved and his ego is boosted but the blacks are still essentially oppressed (just choosing a less oppressive version of their previous oppression) and the white liberals are the biggest victims and a bourgeoisie English lifestyle of exploitation & moral ambivalence goes forward happily is very Nazi. Also some fetish-y, objectifying shots of black extras. The power hierarchy set up by the film is still "white men > black men" instead of suggesting any true equality. And the film's treatment of mixed race people is as problematic as similarly "democratic" melodramas like Imitation of Life. Its only quaint right-leaning centrism by today's standards (which is still quite evolved for its time), but this film could've been much more if Zanuck fought the censors or studios for some real ideological bravery. Safe films like this that are too afraid to call themselves Left have led to the very dominantly conservative Hollywood studios we have now.

I do recommend this film for its acting, its tight script, lovely cinematography and solid production, but its not a major work you must rush to see. I imagine films like this inspired the New Wave & Neorealists the most as its close but no cigar.

*In retrospect it gets enough right and is a very beautiful films to be highly recommended and compared to today's Hollywood, but its not as great as some European films with the same subjects.