... 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.
