Cry, the Beloved Country

British social drama from the book by Alan Paton, from London Films and director Zoltan Korda has Reverend Kumalo (Canada Lee) living and working in a small farming village in South Africa. When he receives word that his sister is ill in Johannesburg, he journeys there and learns some terrible truths about not only his own family, but his nation as a whole. Kumalo is assisted by Johannesburg priest Msimangu (Sidney Poitier), and his Kumalo's discoveries bring him into contact with James Jarvis (Charles Carson), the wealthiest white farmer near Kumalo's church. Also featuring Geoffrey Keen, Joyce Carey, Vivien Clinton, Michael Goodliffe, Albertina Temba, Edric Connor, and Lionel Ngakane.

This was a shocking look at apartheid conditions in South Africa, a situation that wasn't widely known or discussed in Europe or the U. S. Stage star Canada Lee is heartbreaking as a good man facing miserable truths. Lee died soon after filming from a heart attack after being summoned to testify at the HUAC hearings. Many of the local performers were non-professionals, and it shows, but the film gains a sort of Italian neo-realist vibe. I've also see the 1995 film version featuring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. That's worth seeing as well, but making it wasn't a possible legal problem for the participants, unlike the 1951 version.

A powerful, deep, and complex story of an interracial crime in 1940s Johannesburg. As in The Grapes Of Wrath, the spotlight is on the human struggle and heartbreak of a racially divided society instead of the inevitable political and moral overtones, and the result is the story of a generation.

I had not seen this film for 55 years.It was shown recently on TPTV.I found it to be a worthy statement on apartheid.Sidney Potier shines in an early role.Canada Lee appears in his last role.

There seems little point in remaking proved masterpieces of cinema. Generally they are given short shrift by critics and moviegoers with examples such as a new "Stagecoach" and "Psycho" quickly assigned to oblivion while their originals continue to give endless pleasure either as DVDs or TV reshowings. The 1995 version of "Cry, the Beloved Country" deserved a similar fate and was only saved I would imagine because the original version of Alan Paton's South African novel directed by Vincent Korda in 1951 is so little known today. I regard this neglect and the fact that it was felt that a "new" version was needed as one of cinema's greatest tragedies, for the original was beyond doubt, in my opinion, one of the half dozen greatest films ever to have emerged from a British studio. I ran the two versions again recently. By the end of the exercise I vowed never again to see the "new" version as in every sense it is the inferior of the two. I would cite the treatments of one small scene to make the point, the incredibly moving moment in the novel when the news is broken to the white landowner on his farm of the murder of his only son by a group of black youth during the course of a burglary of his home in Johannesburg. Korda's treatment of the scene takes approximately a third of the time of the equivalent in the new Darrell Roodt version. It is impressively understated with the father quietly having to sit down to take in the dreadful news he has been brought. Richard Harris in the same part cannot match Charles Carson's tremendous dignity, exteriorising his grief in a far more theatrical way. It is the difference between tragedy and melodrama. Korda's monochrome "Cry, the Beloved Country" is almost documentary in style. The voice-over reading of Paton's opening paragraph is set against shots of the landscape it describes. The black Minister's train journey to the big city to find his fallen sister is punctuated by landscapes becoming more and more blighted by the rape of industry. Once there he embarks on a sad pilgrimage of shantytowns photographed with all the mastery of the postwar Italian neo-realists. That Korda's version of Paton's bleak tale is on the same level of artistic integrity and achievement as works such as "Bicycle Thieves" and "Germany Year Zero" is a measure of how highly I rate it. The use of music is masterly: indigenous a cappella choruses for the credits then nothing for the first third of the film. Then almost imperceptibly Raymond Gallois-Montbrun's orchestral score creeps in to meditate on some of the quieter scenes reaching a sort of apotheosis reminiscent of the conclusion of Berg's Violin Concerto by adopting the form of a chorale prelude for the final scene where the Minister climbs a hilltop to witness the dawn of a new day at the time his son is being executed. Shortly before he has passed the doubly bereaved white farmer to whom he has sent flowers on learning of his wife's death. The moment of reconcilliation between the two men is marked by the farmer's simple acknowledgement "Your flowers were of great beauty". There are few moments in cinema as moving as this.

A sincere courageous film which depicted the apartheid society in South Africa ( instituted in 1948,abolished in 1991)at the beginning of the fifties.

It depicts the different paths of two men :a black minister , Stephen Kumalo ,and a wealthy landlord, James Jarvis ;two paths which will cross each other in tragic circumstances.

Kumalo is a country priest,Johannesburg town is a world he does not know at all ;his arrival ,when he's fooled by the young man, is revealing ; his faith will be put to the test during the ordeals and trials he will have to cope with....many exploited black men do not think that pie in the sky is enough now...

Jarvis is a good husband and a proud father ,but he's also a ruthless rich ,who has no pity on the tenant farmer who cannot pay anymore; he too,will experiment tragedy but his son's progressist ideas (the reading of his manifesto is one of the great moments of the film,summing up the plight of black people in admirably succint style) will make him a brand new man.

Sidney Poitier ,who paved a reliable way for today's black stars , makes all his scenes count ,though he does not play the lead.