La tragedia di Harlem

"Lost Boundaries" is a 1949 film, based on the true story of a black family that passed for white in New Hampshire. The stars are Mel Ferrer, Beatrice Pearson, Richard Hylton, and Carleton Carpenter. Ferrer plays a black doctor, Scott Carter, who looks white. He wants to live as a black man, and his future wife (Pearson) who comes from a family that has always "passed" has agreed to live as a black as well. But after they marry and there's a baby on the way, and still no job, Scott decides to take a position in a white hospital. Eventually he becomes the town doctor. Before you know it, 20 years have passed, and he and his wife have never even told their children that they have black blood. This leads to complications.

Released the same year as "Pinky," "Lost Boundaries" is a very good movie about deep-seated prejudice that occurred in the north and not in its usual place, the south. Its essential problem is that it doesn't employ any black actors to play the Carters. "Pinky," a superior film, was criticized for the same reason, except that without Jeanne Crain, "Pinky" would not have been made. "Lost Boundaries" has no stars.

It is curious that the issue of "passing" seems to have piqued Hollywood's interest in the late '40s, and one wonders if World War II had something to do with it, with people venturing out of their neighborhoods and meeting others from different social positions and walks of life, all with the same goal of fighting the Axis. However, when Lena Horne went to entertain the troops in World War II, the black soldiers were behind the prisoners of war in the audience. You really wonder what was going through anyone's minds. Certainly not liberty and justice for all.

Lost Boundaries (1949)

This affected me more than I would have expected. I mean, the changes in how we see race and "race relations" since 1949 are huge. The acting is really solid, if not searingly intense (which it has room for). And the narrative is complex enough with a few turning points to make it all interesting.

There is a sense as you watch that you're being shown a social issue and that the jury is already in. We know what we are supposed to feel, and we feel it. There is also a sense of something that doesn't happen much any more—the well known trick of "passing," which means being an African-American (usually) who is light skinned enough to "pass" as white. This is no small thing, since it required a social shift and truly living a "white" American's life, including both the advantages and the inner angst of having left behind your own roots.

So it's important stuff, and good stuff. And it was more compelling in its details and acting than you might think, being both socially loaded and a bit low budget. The production standards are high, however, and the results make it worth watching. I frankly did more than confirm what I already knew about the era and race in America. I realigned a little, feeling more than reminded, but also a little educated.

Yes, the approach here is outdated, and it ignores the true range of racism and hatred of the time, even in the supposedly enlightened New England setting here. But it has the truth woven into the stylized telling. If you think you already know all this, give it a look anyway. It's imprtant enough to try.

This film is loosely based on the experiences of Albert Johnston, a black physician who could pass for white, and his light skinned wife, also African American.

In the film, the protagonist is Dr. Scott Carter and his wife Marcia Carter. His wife's family has been passing for white their entire adult lives, and is not happy about Albert's decision to practice medicine openly, as a black man, for fear that the truth would come out about themselves.

So Carter gets an internship in Georgia at a black hospital, but is rejected there because he looks so white. He goes back to Boston - where he graduated and where his wife's family lives - and tries for internships in white hospitals as a black man, with no success. Then he finally decides to "pass" for white long enough to finish his internship, and gets one in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. While there he saves the life of a doctor whose father, the town doctor in Keenan, NH, has just died. That doctor recommends him to take over his father's practice, even after Scott confesses his true race to him.

Scott says this is only for a little while, until he can get some money in the bank and build a reputation, and then he will practice somewhere as a black doctor. Scott DOES build up the clinic in Boston open to all races named after a mentor with an old school buddy in his spare time. But time passes in Keenan. First a son is born then a daughter, both light skinned as their parents are, and although the reason is never given, it is probably because the Carters can give their children a life of opportunity that they could never give them if they were known to be black, that they continue the ruse for twenty years. Their son is attending a good college, their daughter is a typical teen with crushes and giggly friends. And then their secret gets out in a most unusual way.

This is a very well done film with good acting, direction, and production values, with it being shot on location in New England. The sequence where the teenage son is told his heritage is particularly poignant, with him looking in the mirror and at his arms and hands, like he is seeing himself for the first time. The original material actually focused on the son.

What is different about this film is that it is a tale of prejudice and what it takes to get around those prejudices in the north, where the opposition does not consist of organized violence and bullying and men on horseback with torches in the night. Instead it is quiet but firm social exclusion. And there are sympathetic white folks in the film - the preacher in Keenan, the doctor who gives Scott his big chance, and a cop in Harlem. But the societal boundaries that keep African Americans from succeeding and participating in all walks of life are still there.

Producer Louis De Rochemont was originally going to make this film with MGM, but there were creative differences. I can only imagine that Louis B. Mayer somehow wanted to make it into a musical . Instead, Rochemont put up his own money and made the cinema gem that is this film. Highly recommended.

No need to detail the plot as others have done. On the whole, this is a very sincere and thoughtful production. Easy to say that by today's standards the film lacks honesty, especially by casting whites in the lead roles. However, I expect the production went as far as any commercial production of its time could in dealing with the emerging issue of race prejudice. Remember, much of the commercial audience was in the Jim Crow South, and I expect many theaters there refused its showing, (probably in the North too, only more subtly).

Besides, the effort to de-glamorize everyone and everything in the film, along with its location photography and varying sound quality, suggests that social conscience is what the film-makers were aiming for and not big box office. This was an independent production, far from the Hollywood glamor factory, even though the executive producer Louis de Rochemont had been a top producer at 20th Century Fox. I particularly like the way they used ordinary looking people in so many of the principal and supporting parts, especially the charming but plain-faced Susan Douglas and the equally charming but goofy-looking Carleton Carpenter. The ending too, is handled with a fair amount of honesty. especially the highly symbolic very last frame.

Too bad that this was precisely the kind of gritty little conscience film that disappeared from the screen following the Mc Carthy purges that loomed on the horizon. Even though the movie is now mainly of historical interest, it indicates the sort of challenging entertainment that was lost to the public during the Cold War decade of the 1950's. More than anything, it now needs to be shown more often, so that younger generations can get a definite sense of time, place, and attitudes, even if the actors are white.

Others have described Lost Boundaries very well here, so we will not retrace the plot. As we watched this movie on TCM, it again reinforced our feeling that the movie industry has in some ways lost its way today. From what we can see, while Lost Boundaries was well reviewed by contemporary viewers, it was not particularly recognized when it was made. Nevertheless, being a modest production of its time, it easily surpasses so many movies made today with far greater resources in terms of budget, "star power," and other means. When the industry focused on telling human stories with human beings, it was much more convincing. Today, there is so much focus on marketing, gimmickry, "star" power, and extraneous things like special effects and post-production polishing that it seems the stories lack that "human touch."

We live in Hawaii, and recently saw "The Descendants" out of natural curiosity to see our home state featured, and our response, and that of others we know, was lukewarm. The story seemed to lack depth and any real investment of characters to any stakes (since it was in part about land and wealth), yet it is being touted for Best Picture and more. Clooney was already given Best Actor in the Golden Globes, and our belief is that the award is being rigged because he is a Hollywood favorite and insider. It is a typical Clooney job...glib and slightly sarcastic, and it baffles us that it merits any such recognition.

Occasionally someone makes a great picture because talent is irrepressible and will always emerge, but now it seems to be in spite of the industry rather than because of it. It seems that the television producers seem to have passed the feature film producers in telling stories (Mad Men, Breaking Bad). Tell stories with people, about people, by people...please.