The Mark of the Hawk (1957)

Director:

Michael Audley

Writers:

H. Kenn Carmichael (writer)
Lloyd Young (screenplay)

Release Date:

December 1957 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Against Voodoo Fury... The Flame of Faith!

Plot:

The man called Obam struggles with the increasingly hostile forces facing each other in a colonial African country...

Plot Keywords:

Bird In Title | Animal In Title

Cast

Eartha Kitt	...	Renee
Sidney Poitier	...	Obam
Juano Hernandez	...	Amugu
John McIntire	...	Bruce Craig
Helen Horton	...	Barbara Craig
Marne Maitland	...	Sandar Lai
Gerard Heinz	...	Govenor General
Patrick Allen	...	Gregory
Earl Cameron	...	Prosecutor
Clifton Macklin	...	Kanda
Ewen Solon	...	Inspector
Lockwood West	...	Magistrate
Francis Matthews	...	Overholt
Philip Vickers	...	Ben
Bill Nagy	...	Fred

Also Known As:

Accused

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #18853) | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Biafra, Nigeria

Company:

Film Productions International

Trivia:

Eartha Kitt's film debut.

The Mark of the Hawk was a rare early Poitier performance

After months of keeping this on my DVD disc having taped it from the Family Net channel, I finally watched this rare Sidney Poitier movie a few hours ago. Taking place in Africa, Mr. Poitier plays a man recently elected to the legislature that had been previously white dominated. His brother, a radical activist, thinks Obam (Sidney's role) has sold out since that legislature hasn't been very sympathetic to the black cause of freedom there. It takes some convincing from wife Eartha Kitt, preacher Juano Hernandez, and white outsider John McIntire to keep Obam from completely surrendering to the more violent ways of the Communist-inspired cause of his brother though some of the British whites have their own racist agenda to fulfill. McIntire himself tells how he dealt with the takeover of China and how his adopted Asian son was affected. Poitier, as usual, has great presence throughout and seeing him with the other influential black actor in film at the time, Hernandez, seems inspiring here. I'm not sure how effective this movie was though it certainly made me think about how religion often plays a role in various movements. And how nice was it to hear Ms. Kitt, in her first starring picture, sing one of her hits near the end. So on that note, The Mark of the Hawk is certainly worth seeing once if you're a Poitier fan or one interested in Africa during the late '50s. P.S. In citing anyone who came from my birth town of Chicago, the woman who played McIntire's wife, Helen Horton, came from there.