All the Way Home

No reason that makes any rational sense can explain why there are no cast credits in this documentary All The Way Home. Nothing rational by today's standards.

But this was the era of the blacklist in Hollywood and I recognized in the cast the presence of Art Smith who was on Hollywood's blacklist I imagine that others in the cast were New York based players and some might have had a similar blacklist problem.

The film itself concerns housing discrimination and the subtle de facto racism behind it. Production values are sparse and the message is as subtle s being hit on the head with a ballpine hammer. Still the message is as real today as it was in the 50s.

A man and his wife are selling their home in a nice community. The people who want to purchase are pleasant, they like the neighborhood, and they can afford the price. The man doing the selling is pleased. But his neighbors are not, because the people buying the house are Black.

This was called "blockbusting" back then. A Black family would buy a house in an all-White community, and a lot of the people would sell their homes at bargain prices to Black families. Although this film makes the point that home prices don't decline under these situations, that the local banker and the local minister think it's fine, this sort of prejudice was very common back then. I still continues today.

"I have nothing against these people....but..."

"All the Way Home" is a short film about race...something unusual for 1957. The story begins with a man putting his home up for sale in an all-white neighborhood. Some of the people looking at buying the place are black...and soon there is a huge backlash in the community against black people moving into their neighborhood.

I appreciated this film for many reasons. For a low budget film, the acting and production values are very good. Also, the film doesn't offer pat solutions and in the end, the problem hasn't been miraculously solved. It also provides MUCH in the way of discussion material. A very thought-provoking and sad little film....and one that shows us that perhaps we haven't changed quite as much as we need to.

This short film should be watched together with the 1957 Documentary Crisis In Levittown, which explores how new suburban PA residents of this new suburb reacted to a black family moving in.

Because I am reviewing this today, in late 2020, I would be remiss not to stress how the ugliness from so many in 1957 sounded identical to what we see by so many who support the soon to be done magat president. The subtle ones blamed everyone else except their own bigotry and the overt ones sounded just like modern Q Anon.

We heard these same ugly responses when Little Rock Central was integrated, when MLK rose, when the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts were passed and more.

Back to the factionalized account, some of the acting was solid, especially by those p,aging concerned citizens. Even in 1957 the actors recognized how disgusting segregation was. Watch them both.