La marque du faucon

Notable for being Eartha Kitt's screen debut, this film is a political potboiler with heavy religious overtones. The setting is an unnamed country in pre-independence Africa, where Obam (Poitier) is a newly elected representative. Agitating for independence, he clashes with the colonial government, his firebrand younger brother Kanda (Clifton Macklin) and newly arrived missionary Mr. Craig (John McIntire).

Some of the speeches get tiresome and a ten minute flashback in the middle of the film slows the plot to a crawl, but the always watchable Poitier still manages to carry the film to it's improbable conclusion. Eartha is cast waaay against type as Obam's demure wife Renee, but then again we are treated to a rendition of her first gold record song ("This Man Is Mine") which is more than worth the wait.

It's important to understand the context for "The Mark of the Hawk". Following WWII, colonies around the world were pushing very hard for independence from the mother countries (specifically, France, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands). In some cases, wars for independence broke out (such as in Indonesia and Vietnam) and others they worked with the mother country for gradual independence.

This film is set in an African nation controlled by the Brits...and the local natives, naturally, want the colonizers out and an installation of their own government. Unfortunately, locals distrust even their own elected officials and Obam (Sidney Poitier) has his hands full trying to both work with the British in order to get them to leave AND maintain the good will of his own people. However, his own brother is an angry man and sees Obam as a sellout...and other locals seem like-minded. Will Obam be able to somehow please everyone and navigate this period peaceably? Oh, and as for the hawk...that's a symbol of the radical resistance.

This film has some excellent black actors...not only Poitier but Eartha Kitt and Juano Hernandez. Of course, for that matter, the 'Africans' listed above are also Americans. I wonder how the movie would have been with African and Brits in the leads instead. Who knows?!

So is it any good? Yes. I like that it deals with colonialism and nationalism...topics rarely dealt with in films of the day. It also is quite interesting and was well crafted. Well worth seeing...though Kitt's singing seemed out of place and the film was a tad preachy.

Cheaply made and often badly staged, The Mark of the Hawk is nevertheless a worthwhile venture despite its failings.

With its wordy script, in some hands it can seem poetic, notably Sidney Poitier's. (Still a year off his first star billing, despite being the nominal lead in this, his tenth movie). Yet in lesser hands it can seem leaden, ham-fisted and trite. Certainly David Goh was unlikely to take any Academy Awards for his work here, and he's not alone. Parts of the film look like one of the best dramas Poitier was ever involved with... other parts look like an amateur home movie.

The film begins with an air of sophistication, but the longer it runs, the more it starts to unravel. Poitier's intelligent militant Obam begins to turn his back on the idea of independence when he learns of the love of Jesus, the film's concept of exploring all sides of the argument evaporating for a syruppy get-out. While many of the themes are looked at from a mature perspective, the film's tagline "Against Voodoo Fury... The Flame of Faith!" was something which set out to unintentionally undermine it.

We go from a manor house party with elegantly crafted lines and gradually descend through the ranks of amusingly kitsch flashbacks, all the way down to Eartha Kitt deciding to make this political message film a light musical. A rare British movie appearance for Poitier, his future forays into this arena - A Warm December, The Wilby Conspiracy and, particularly, To Sir With Love - all reaped richer rewards. Ultimately The Mark of the Hawk goes from a lesser- known gem in his career and down to something of a missed opportunity.

Much has been made of this being Eartha Kitt's first role both in the Trivia section of the IMDb page for the film and in some of the reviews. In fact here first screen role was in the 1954 CinemaScope film New Faces.

Interestingly this does not appear on Eartha's IMDb profile page but if you look up the IMDb entry for New Faces (1954) you will see her listed.

Some reviewers have mentioned the somewhat religious overtones of the ending of this movie. Not surprising when you consider that the production was sponsored by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church.

Although Sidney Poitier was not first billed, his character was definitely one of the main 3, and if it wasn't for him this movie would never make it past the 2 star mark. His acting carried this movie. It has a decent story about the Africans wanting freedom in their own country and although it didn't really have a B movie feel to it, there wasn't much there. The story was told well and the camera work was OK but you never really care about any of the characters. Sidney Poitier and his character's brother were the only ones who had any believable emotions. The rest of the cast had the same "look at me act" feel I got when watching the 1934 version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

After watching this it is not hard to see why Sidney Poitier was nominated for an Academy Award the next year, he is just such a good actor in a time where acting was less about believability and more about stage presence.