The Mark of the Hawk

Sidney Poitier and Eartha Kitt are a married couple caught up in the independence birthpangs of colonial Africa post World War II. Not an easy time for the colonies or those who occupied them.

Poitier is a labor organizer and as such he's considered a radical. But these folks just lump everyone together. Poitier's brother Clifford Macklin he's in with a group that is burning down plantations. Caught in the middle of all this is minister Juano Hernandez who is playing a Desmond Tutu like part. And he has guest preacher in John McIntire and wife Helen Horton.

Africa as it really was back then is what Mark Of The Hawk shows. Not some studio jungle set but the real deal. In fact it was a sign of maturity of the American public that this rather than some Tarzan epic.

Nothing is really resolved here, but the film marks a beginning not an end. No coincidence that this came out in 1957 the year the Gold Coast became Ghana, the first African colony to depart the British Empire.

Some real good history here.