Native Son (1951) User Reviews

Better Than I Expected

[Sturgeon54 · 6/10 · 5 February 2010]

As an admirer of Wright's written work - especially "Native Son" - I had incredibly low expectations for several reasons: there was next to no budget, the cast and crew (including the starring role) were all amateurs, the director was not American and had never made an American film before this, the film had to be shot in Argentina, and "Native Son" is such a dense, complex, psychological piece of work to begin with.

But, if you look at this as a simple B-movie melodrama with a racial subtext that was badly missing from almost all of the films of its day, it isn't bad. In film, you don't get motivation, you get action, and the novel "Native Son" was all about hidden motivations and desires. Maybe it was a bad idea to even attempt to make Wright's novel into a film, but one must give him and the filmmakers credit for trying. In the era just before the McCarthy hearings and the blacklist, a feature film released to the public that was even half as potent as Wright's novel would have been commendable.

An idea actually occurred to me while watching this: someone should make a feature film about the making of "Native Son." From what I've read, the production faced many obstacles and setbacks, both physical and ideological, and I think the story behind this would be fascinating - especially the difficulty of an author playing his own creation while trying to maintain his artistic integrity. Of course, Wright's life was fascinating in and of itself. Spike Lee, are you listening?

An interesting and odd little film...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 23 February 2021]

... partially because the subject matter at the time it was made prevented it from being produced in the United States. Instead, much of it was shot in Argentina with Argentine actors and actresses who later had to be dubbed because you couldn't have people with South American accents in a film that was set in Chicago.

This is based on the novel by Richard Wright, and he adapted it for the screen and played the lead, African American Bigger Thomas, the oldest of three children of a widow woman whose husband was lynched in the South. The family fled to Chicago, and is living in squalor.

Bigger is a bitter fellow, considering the hopeless poverty the family is living in, and immediately he is established as a gray character. He procures a hand made gun and with his "gang", plans the armed robbery of a white owned establishment. This never goes off, basically because the group chickens out at the last minute. Yet when he is offered a job opportunity, chauffeur for the wealthy Dalton family, he accepts and shows up for the job.

But events overtake Bigger on the first day. He is supposed to drive the Daltons' college age daughter to the university library and wait for her, but she demands that he instead pick up her date, a labor leader and a radical, and drive them to black Chicago night spots. What is he to do? If he refused, Mary could get him fired. If he obeys, her dad could get him fired. He takes the path of least resistance and takes them to the night spots. When he returns home with Mary, she is so drunk she cannot stand up. If dad finds out what Bigger did, he is fired, so he carries her to her bedroom. Trying to get out of one bad situation leads to a worse situation which leads to Bigger accidentally killing Mary. He then disposes of her body in the most gruesome way possible. Her total disappearance the next morning has the wealthy parents believing she's been kidnapped. What happens from there? Watch and find out.

The point is, Bigger's behavior, at every turn, has been completely dominated by fear, and warranted fear at that - the fear of what happens to a black man if he is even suspected of having harmed a white girl at this point in history. He had my complete sympathy in this situation, but then he does some things that somewhat made me lose that sympathy. It really does take some unexpected turns.

The production values were actually quite good. Time was taken to make buildings, the mansion, and the nightclubs look authentic. Perhaps lots of it was shot on location or the equivalent of it in Argentina. One of the big problems is that Richard Wright is 43 years old and playing somebody 20 years younger. And although he does look young for his age he does not look like he is in his twenties. Another problem is that some of the actors are stiff and the dialogue a bit stilted. Yet it is very much worth seeing. Kino Lorber recently restored this film to its original length since almost half of it was missing from what was allowed to be seen in America because of the censorship of the era.

well-intentioned, but squirm-inducing curiosity of a troubled era that may

[tmcardle-71474 · 5/10 · 22 May 2015]

This movie had an incredibly troubled history. Hollywood would not touch Native Son even during its brief 1940s flirtation with liberalism. A 1944 Orson Welles stage production with Canada Lee playing the teen-aged gang member Bigger Thomas, though critically successful, had been quashed by the Catholic Legion of Decency. Wright's novel was sold through the Book of the Month -- its first African-American author -- and won incredible notices. It also scared the daylights out of mainstream white culture. He sympathetically portrayed an African-American murderer (the Legion's stated complaint about the play), unambiguously showed white female desire for a black male and gave a rather jaundiced view of the left-wing, jazz-loving bohemia hidden among the youth of the very wealthy. (And by portraying the thrill seekers of the left as merely that, Wright also alienated many of his Communist and left-wing friends.) It was all too much for Hollywood. Still, a number of people tried to get a film of the play made independently with Canada Lee eventually opting to shoot in Argentina with a French director (not Welles). However, Lee couldn't get out of the U.S. (Oddly enough, he and Sidney Poitier were sneaked into Apartheid South Africa as indentured servants that year so they could appear in Zoltan Korda's masterful adaption of Cry, The Beloved Country.) At the last minute, Wright was called upon to play the lead role and he is terrible! The great writer could not act. He does the one thing a serious black actor should never do -- he pops his eyes constantly. In fairness, the production values are outstanding. This is basically a crime story with a racial subtext and Chenel nails the film noir ambiance. Unfortunately, the supporting actors are Argentinian with Americans dubbing their voices. And there's Wright, already over 40 -- too old to play bigger teenager Thomas -- popping his eyes. When I saw this screened at the AFI, Stanley Crouch, who had written a laudatory essay about the film, spoke afterwords. I seriously wondered if he had seen the movie before he wrote about it. Crouch mumbled throughout his question and answer session and the audience kept telling him to speak louder. The movie deserves preservation simply because of its historic significance but not a wide audience. Read the novel instead.

Dubbed Voices Were of Local Residents

[ectocus · 8 July 2001]

When Native Son was made in Argentina in 1950 some of the actors were not from the United States, thus they spoke English with accents not realistic for the characters they portrayed. Dialogue was then dubbed using the voices of local American residents of Buenos Aires. I was then a student at an American high school in BA; they came to the school looking for an American boy and girl to be the voices of Bigger Thomas' brother and sister. I did Vera Thomas' voice and a boy whose Dad was in the Navy did the voice of Bigger's brother. We got off school for two days and as I recall we were paid 300 pesos. Mr. Chanal drove us home afterwards. My big line was, "Eeek, eeek, a rat!". It's a long time ago but I seem to remember that some parts were actually played by non-actor local Americans. After 49 years, I saw this movie again in 1999 and couldn't believe how amateurish it is, but in many ways the making of this movie was Amateur Night, so that makes sense.

strange but courageous production about racism

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 7/10 · 12 October 2017]

Piere Chenal was a specialist of crime movies since the 30's but never directed a masterpiece (except "La Foire Aux Chimères, still not available on DVD) but all his movies were intelligently shot and "Le Dernier Tournant" (first movie adaptation of "The Postman Always Rings Twice") was admired by Orson Welles. During WWII and after, Pierre Chenal shot in Argentina some nice crime movies. "Native Son" was adapted and played by his author, Richard Wright, and shot first in Chicago then in Argentina. The movie had some success in south American countries but did nothing in USA where 40 minutes were cut. Richard Wright never saw the final cut. Pierre Chenal didn't want that cut print to be exploited in Europe. In the 80's, a 90 minutes print was found and exploited. If you want to know more about this very strange shooting, I advise you to read the six pages comments by Pierre Chenal in the book "Pierre Chenal" (collection 24 souvenirs / seconde). You will discover a very bright director and maybe want to discover his movies.

A FLAWED CLASSIC...!

[masonfisk · 7/10 · 4 May 2021]

A flawed but ultimately important 1951 adaptation of the seminal Richard Wright classic which he co-scripted & inexplicably starred in (?). Wright plays Bigger Thomas, a spiteful & angry black man living in the slums in Chicago (actually filmed in South America) w/his mother & younger brother & sister. Hoping to derail him from his path to infamy, a confidante of the family recommends him to become a chauffeur for a rich white family where he'll live & work from. There he meets the family's dangerous daughter who is more than willing to corrupt poor Bigger as she has him drive her & her boyfriend, an unabashed lefty w/revolutionary leanings, around as they drink winding up at a black club where Bigger's singer/girlfriend is debuting. Wrapping up the night, Bigger has to navigate the clearly overly intoxicated daughter to her room stirring the attention of her blind grandmother which sends Bigger into a panic whereby he accidentally kills her when he smothers her w/a pillow (to prevent her from exposing him). To make matters worse he chooses to dispose of the body in the home's incinerator & blames her apparent disappearance on the boyfriend. As tensions mount & a flurry of reporters descend on the manse to stay on top of the kidnapping angle Bigger has concocted, one journalist in particular continues to prod Bigger until the remains of the dead woman are found sending him fleeing w/his girl into the inner city slums to evade capture where things only get worse. If you can overcome the bad acting, obvious un-American locations, & colossally miscast Wright (who was in his 40's playing a someone in his 20's) then the social issues & inherent racism of the time makes sense why this wretched character, who is devoid of getting our sympathies, still does anyway making this black film noir (it was presented last week on TCM's Noir Alley w/Eddie Muller) a must for all to see.

This film quotes Carl Sandburg as saying that "Chicago . . . "

[tadpole-596-918256 · 6/10 · 3 December 2021]

" . . . Is the world's hog butcher," but the poet's rhyme about cats, fog and "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" may be a more apt summary of NATIVE SON. Adapted from THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER, this revised SON centers on Bigger, whose father was executed for a Capital Crime. After smothering Mary in her bed, this chip off the old beheading block viciously stuffs his own bed mate Bessie down an elevator shaft. Since Bigger's lame defense attorney Max can up with no better dream team slogan than "If she's dust, it can't be lust," the doomed client gets sentenced to a hot squat. However, NATIVE SON soon gave rise to "jury nullification"--or the "They can't help themselves" defense--in which a certain demographic of criminal trial becomes a poetry slam and most defendants are cleared to hunt for elusive or nonexistent "Real Killers" on the Back Nine.

native son

[mossgrymk · 3/10 · 8 March 2021]

Imagine, if you will, J.D. Salinger playing Holden in a film adaptation of "Catcher In The Rye" or Lillian Hellman essaying Regina in "Little Foxes" instead of Bette Davis and you have some idea of the sheer awfulness of watching Richard Wright, actor, (as opposed to reading Richard Wright, writer), as he first hijacks and then smothers this film in a pillow of amateurishness. In this endeavor he is ably assisted by Gloria Madison as his girlfriend. Indeed the scenes featuring the two of them display the worst acting by a male/female duo, well, ever. Give it a D plus. PS...Little attempt is made to convince the viewer that he or she is not in Buenos Aires. How else to account for the plethora of palm trees in background shots?

Way ahead of its time chronicle of racism and its pernicious effects

[Turfseer · 8/10 · 3 March 2021]

For many years, Native Son, based on Richard Wright's masterful novel, was shown with approximately an hour of footage excised. But now TCM has presented a fully restored version.

Native Son was not made in the US but rather in Argentina by French director Pierre Chanal. It's set in Chicago and features a good deal of amateur performances (including some audio parts dubbed into English). Perhaps the most controversial decision was to allow Richard Wright, over 40 at the time, to play the protagonist Bigger Thomas, who in his novel is only supposed to be an older teenager.

Wright isn't as bad an actor as some have said, even though this was the first time he performed in a film. The character of Bigger is a revolutionary one as Wright adroitly displays the racism of white society without sugar-coating the effect of said racism upon some denizens of the black community.

It is quite understandable why some African-American critics criticized Wright's portrayal as a caricature in light of centuries of stereotyped depictions of African-Americans in various performance art. In their view, Wright was just pouring fuel on the fire.

Wright on the other hand was trying to explain why Bigger acted the way he did. Bigger became a criminal because of racism-but Wright was not about to excuse his protagonist's conduct. At the outset, he depicts Bigger as planning an armed robbery. But notably it's the black bar owner (representing the black community) who attempts to stop him from going through with it.

Hence Wright makes it quite clear that Bigger was not able to overcome the effects of racism-his case is a tragedy. But it's the majority of African-Americans in Native Son who are depicted as decent people who must cope with the racism of white society at every turn in their daily lives. For example, when the police dragnet goes into effect to capture Bigger, the police invade the apartments of innocent blacks without warrants (even violating the sanctity of a home in which a pregnant woman is giving birth!).

The characters in Native Son are heavily nuanced. While Bigger's boss Henry Dalton (Nicholas Joy) is depicted as paternalistic, he's also not an out and out racist like Britten (Charles Cane), the private detective he hires to find his missing daughter (Cane is amazing as this "Northern" racist so much more convincing than typical melodramatic racist types), But he exploits black people in other ways (earlier on, Bigger's mother complains about the exorbitant rent for a cramped, debilitated apartment, owned and managed by Dalton).

Wright depicts the two white liberals here--Dalton's daughter Mary (Jean Wallace) and her "Communist" boyfriend Jan-as hardly what one could call paragons of virtue, with both getting drunk before Bigger takes Mary back home and ending up accidentally killing her (these portrayals are in contrast to Wright's overall left-leaning sympathies, marking him as an honest reporter who rises above the ideology he ascribes to).

Ironically, Wright wants his audience to see that Bigger killed Mary under the mitigating circumstances of white racism (Bigger was forced to ensure Mary didn't make a sound because being alone in a white woman's bedroom was of course completely forbidden in society at that time). The whole point why Bigger's lawyer enters a guilty plea is to argue that there were mitigating circumstances to the crime, But when the DA attempts to inflame the passions of the court, the lawyer has no choice to take back the plea and request a jury trial.

It's Bigger's revelation to his lawyer that he murdered his girlfriend that throws the attorney into a precipitous conflict. But after much soul-searching, the lawyer will still argue mitigation, due to the overall racism of white society. Despite the accidental nature of the daughter's killer, Wright wants us to have no illusions about Bigger: he goes ahead with a ransom demand even after Mary's killing.

Bigger appreciates his lawyer's expression of forgiveness but takes a bigger step in acknowledging now he was responsible for his crimes. Despite the great tragedy of Bigger's life, there is a measure of redemption for him as he finally experiences a profound epiphany of self-awareness. Native Son is a daring vision of the racial divide, way ahead of its time.

A little big film......

[byron-116 · 6/10 · 20 July 2022]

... is Native Son.

Filmed in Argentina with local native actors who are dubbed by Americans for obvious 1950s reasons in the USA about Blacks. Interesting story but acting leaves a lot to be desired.

Don't do it!

[hemisphere65-1 · 2/10 · 21 March 2021]

If you've read the novel, this is worth watching out of curiosity. If you're thinking of reading it, which I highly recommend, do not watch this crime against celluloid! The acting is distractingly terrible from everyone involved, including the author. More recent versions are much better, so watch one of those.

Restored classic

[lesliekangas · 8/10 · 22 December 2021]

The restored original version came from an 8mm film found in Argentina. And no, they didn't hack our voting. TCM's intro tells us the journey of the film and it makes this movie more interesting. We learn it had to be shot in Argentina because 1) political climate inUS, 2) no actors would work in it for fear of being blackballed. The second reason made the author play the role, so: he's not an actor, and secondly, he was 20 years older than the role. So, the film has nobody actors and show in another land with stolen shots from Chicago thrown in. The history and script made this movie for me.

NATIVE SON is tantamount to watching a rental car ad . . .

[pixrox1 · 5/10 · 3 December 2021]

. . . In which the notorious Orange Juice runs through an airport, ditching ensanguined gloves, blades and ugly-a-- shoes as he trots along, eager to drag his ailing geezer limbs back to the borrowed vehicle. Surely Bigger Thomas is the template for Juice, whose mom probably read about to her son every night of his prep and collegiate grid iron career. How else could his wrongful death exploits come in such a natural, effortless manner?

A definite curio

[bwaynef · 5 April 1999]

Author Tom Clancy has been very critical of the way his novels, including "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," have been adapted for the screen, and he has been especially critical of the casting, believing that Harrison Ford is too old to play his CIA agent hero, Jack Ryan. Perhaps Clancy should do what black novelist Richard Wright did in 1950: play the lead role in the film version of his novel. The novel in question is "Native Son," the now classic tale of Bigger Thomas, a poor black youth who takes the job of chauffeuring the daughter of an affluent white liberal, only to kill the girl out of fear rather than malice.

The movie was produced on a miniscule budget in Europe, and despite poor acting, low-class production values, and a generally amateurish tone, it is of definite interest due to the casting of Wright as Bigger. Sure, Mickey Spillane would play his creation, the hard-nosed private detective Mike Hammer, in 1963's "The Girl Hunters," but whatever Spillane's merits as a writer, he has never been considered a "serious" novelist. Wright, on the other hand, was the first black author to break from the literary ghetto in which Negro writers were usually placed, and be acclaimed as a distinguished man of letters regardless of race. His is a prestigious name in literature, so it comes as quite a shock to see this great writer willing to be seen as a bad actor. But Wright is surrounded by thespians who are just as bad, and can't boast of having written a literary classic. Most of the cast is as amateurish in their portrayals as the stock company Edward Wood employed in such laughably inept productions as "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "Bride of the Monster." The overall production is not as shoddy as Wood's films, but the middle-aged Wright's portrayal of 19-year-old Bigger Thomas is more than enough to thoroughly sink it.

Still, this is a definite curio, and worth a look for anyone as interested in literature as they are in cinema.

Bigger than life

[dbdumonteil · 21 January 2011]

Richard Wright's novels are famous in France.When he had to escape from his native land in the McCarthy years he lived in Sartre's and Camus' country .So it was only natural that the first version of his "native son" was filmed by a French.Pierre Chenal was not a beginner when he made "Native Son" aka " Sangre Negra"-it was actually made in Argentina- he considers his best work.But Chenal had already succeeded in the Film Noir genre:he was the first to adapt for the screen "the postman always rings twice" (Le Dernier Tournant) and "La Foire Aux Chimères " (starring Von Stroheim,one of his favorite actors) was his towering achievement.

Not only Wright adapted his own novel but he also played the part of Bigger.This is rather a mistake ,for Bigger is supposed to be about 25 and the novelist was in his forties and it shows.But it's interesting because it's very rare that a writer becomes an actor in one of his stories (another example is Erich Maria Remarque in Sirk's "a time to live and a time to die" ,but the German writer had a small supporting role).The budget was certainly rather low and the director is to be commanded for he made the best of it,particularly in the scene of Mary's "murder" and in the sequence of the nightmare (the cotton field and the building near decay where Bigger and his girlfriend are hiding). The movie is rather short (90min) and some of the aspects of the novel are botched : Mary and her boyfriend ,who are activist students ,want Bigger to join the union ,and the fiancé gives him "books" which are probably not politically correct,all this is only skimmed over.The Dalton family is a human one ,and Wright ,who was an "Uncle Tom"'s grandchild (his grandparents were slaves) does not make them the bad guys .Bigger is a victim of fate ,and of his condition:had he been white he would not have killed ,he never meant to do it.

As Leonard Maltin wrote ,it was defeated by its low budget.The 1986 remake,starring Victor Love,Elizabeth McGovern and Matt Dillon is pretty good .Both versions are worth a look.