I Passed for White

I PASSED FOR WHITE, one of those title-says-it-all kinda movies, is much better than you'd think. Thanks to the gorgeous Sonya Wilde, who has wonderful acting skills... what a shame she only appeared in a handful of television guest spots thereafter, mostly playing Native Americans on Westerns.

Wilde plays Bernice Lee - her hip brother blows sax at a club and her grandmother has words of wisdom, but no real answers, for what's really troubling Bernice. She can't keep a job when the employers find out she's part black... It was the early sixties, after all.

She decides to become Lila and, on a plane to another state and another life, she meets handsome businessman James Franciscus as Rick Leyton. After a windswept romance they get married. Of course he doesn't realize her secret and the rest of the film has the John "Johnny" Williams's score blasting whenever anyone almost discovers her ruse: especially Rick's pesky mother, continuously asking to meet Bernice's parents.

Wilde handles the melodrama perfectly and reaches for lies about her phantom family better than a lifelong politician. The tension builds nicely between the newlyweds, who make real sparks when times are good. Although Wilde looks so white, the audience won't always share in the controversy of a mixed couple relationship. If it weren't for that pounding soundtrack you might forget what she's so worried about in the first place.

If "I Passed For White" was released today it would stur up quite a storm! Imagine not knowing what race to identify yourself with? The character of "ETHEL" gives a touching performance as a GAL that just does not know which way to turn! A B movie that few have seen this classic is alot of fun!

This film stars Sonya Wilde as a biracial lady and James Franciscus plays her boyfriend who has no idea she isn't 100% lily-white. At first, Sonya doesn't want to pose as white--but she doesn't really fit in with black folks as she appears white. After being refused jobs and being mistreated as biracial, she meets Franciscus and lands a job--and she's tired of not fitting in and just lets people think she's white. After all, in America in 1960, you'd certainly be treated like a second-class citizen if you weren't pure white--which is a stupid shame.

Once the pair marry, things are occasionally a little tough. After all, she's told so many lies about her family and Franciscus and his parents want to meet them. Her lies are a bit hard to swallow and it's not surprising that his mother starts to worry. After all, when the pair are going to LA on their honeymoon (where she told them her parents were), she tells him they can't see her family....as they've just hopped a boat for South America and don't plan on returning!! An additional problem develops when she slowly starts to see that her husband and his family are racists. Can this charade go on any longer--especially when she becomes pregnant? This is generally a very good and engaging film. Here and there are a few moments that seemed like they could have been handled better, but for a relatively low-budget film this can be forgiven. Well worth seeing and an interesting curio. However, I must add that the ending sure felt a bit anti-climactic.

It's an interesting coincidence that this film (which had been on my Netflix queue for some time) came when it did. Just a few days ago, I finished the brilliant novel "Diary of an Ex-Colored Man"--which deals with the same themes as well as discusses why a light-skinned person would want to pose as white. It's a sad story--and a perfect compliment to this film.

I am quite surprised that the lovely Wilde didn't appear in any other films--and only a few guest appearances on TV shows up until 1962. What ever happened to her? I could find nothing on IMDb or when I did a Google search. Odd...

By the way, the DVD print is very, very scratched in places. This doesn't seriously impede the film but it is surprising on a DVD. It could really use some restoration work. However, there are no captions and it would have been nice to have them.

What makes this movie special is that it is a true story written by Mary Bradley about people known to her personally, Reba Lee and her mother. The ending was what really happened in real life and the book and movie were pretty much true to life, not "based on a true story" like so many other movies that end up paying only lip service to the true story. Reba Lee's mother was Mary Bradley's seamstress, so she got the story first hand from the people it happened to. To me, that makes the story even more meaningful than if the author had simply interviewed someone she didn't know and told the story from her own viewpoint. I saw the movie many, many years ago and I am not sure I remember details exactly, but it seems to me that the movie was pretty faithful to the book. If you can find either the book or the movie, it is well worth your time to read or watch it.

Fred M. Wilcox's claim to fame is having directed several classic MGM movies: "Lassie Come Home", "The Secret Garden" and "Forbidden Planet", but this final movie, made for Allied Artists. Is a quite well-made drama with that exploitation movie title "I Passed for White". Writing, producing and directing, he does a fine job with the material.

His script weaves together two major themes: the endemic racial prejudice that continues to exist in America (see: the way jerks like Trump and Vance ridicule Kamala Harris due to her mixed-race status) and more significantly what happens when one lies about oneself instead of finding strength in one's true identity.

Sonya Wilde impresses in the difficult title role, as Wilcox carefully details her problems growing up in a world that's anxious to pigeonhole her. She looks 100% Caucasian but is a member of a Black family, with both her kindly grandma and jazz saxophonist brother identifying as Negro. Tired of being picked on, she heads for Chicago to try a new life on her own, and is fortunate (?) enough to be seated on the plane next to dreamboat James Franciscus.

Growing up I was a big fan of Franciscus, enjoying him as star of "Naked City" and especially "Mr. Novak", and later thrilled (literally) when he starred in Dario Argento's "Cat O' Nine Tails". He was virtually an identical movie type to his contemporary Robert Redford, whose stardom came later and clearly has overshadowed Jim's 100%.

Sonya's inability to stay true to herself in Chicago is quite believable, and once she tries to pretend she's not a Negro in order to make a living and have friends, the lies expand and multiply, and poor Sonya is doomed to suffer.

Franciscus is quite convincing as the too good to be true ideal husband with the kicker that both he and Sonya are genuinely in love. But... society and its pressures intervene.

One interesting fact is that the original score is by "Johnny Williams", one of his first movie assignments, including plenty of excellent jazz music by the future wunderkind of film music. This is a classy, A-movie all the way, with only Wilcox's version of the usual (fake) Hollywood happy ending giving the wrong message in an otherwise sincere drama.