Le chemin de la peur

Forget Carmen Jones! This is Dorothy Dandridge's greatest performance on film, bar none. Her disillusioned, world-weary, but still hopeful Gianna is the essence of film noir. The parallels to her life are eerie. She says to Johnny (Trevor Howard), "No, with us, Johnny, it has to be everything -- or nothing." "Everything and Nothing" would be the title of her posthumously-published autobiography a few years later. She says, "London was my Mexico. There isn't any Mexico for anybody, anywhere." The day she died, she was to return to Mexico to do some television and film work.

Forget the drivel published in most movie-listing books. Watch this film for yourself (if you can find a way to do so). This is a master actress giving everything she has to a role. I would love to see a brand-new director's cut with the outtakes replaced. The haunting music is by Matyas Seiber, who studied composition under Bela Bartok. This film is new every time you watch it.