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.

To answer the above users question "What was Sidney thinking?", Poitier did not in fact "need work" but was a student of the writer H. Kenn Carmichael. I would also like to reiterate the time period. It was 1957 and the movie should be viewed in that way. I believe viewers should see for themselves. Carmichael has a Master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D from the University of Minnesota. He was head of the theater department in the 30's and later worked at City College in Los Angeles. Later in life he did end up becoming an associate pastor and missionary for the Presbyterian Church, USA with his wife. He also became an accomplished song writer.

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.

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.