A Day Without a Mexican

It's too bad that many filmmakers pilfer ideas from others and present them as original without giving due credit. Take this film and the 1965 play "Day of

Absence," by Douglas Turner Ward. This play was quite famous in its day and

has been taught in college drama and English courses for two decades or more, and I can't believe that at least one of the three screenwriters of "Day Without a Mexican," dedicated as they are to advancing the causes of minorities, hasn't at least heard of it. "Day of Absence" depicts the effects on a small Southern town when the white establishment wakes up one morning to discover that all the

black people of the town have mysteriously vanished overnight. This, of course, leaves the remaining population to fend for themselves--and to discover just

how indispensable their former "servants" really are to the fabric of their society. They also learn, in the process, that over reliance by anyone on the services of an underclass does not make one the master but actually the slave, for it

disconnects one from the realities and truths of life. The reality and truth of this film, unfortunately, is that its writers have demeaned it and themselves by not giving credit to the author of the original concept this film is based on--himself a minority.