Carmen Jones (Preminger, USA, 1954), the film version of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, keeps the 1875 score largely in tact. It also keeps the pre-Brown v. Board of Education-1950s in tact.

For starters, Carmen Jones was filmed in dated widescreen CinemaScope. And the garish color palette resembles nothing quite so much as The Music Man. When shirtless protagonist Joe (Harry Belafonte) busts out a love song in a military stockade, his naked torso shines brighter than a new penny.

These goofy aesthetics are matched by the melodrama: A dramatic car ride is obviously filmed before a blue screen. Kisses are overwrought, head-waggling affairs. And, sugar coma, “It was right here, with you” Joe says after revealing he kept a letter from Carmen in his breast pocket—placing his hand over his heart.

The consistent exception to these silly period piece hallmarks is Dorothy Dandridge, who gives a stunning performance in the title role. She is incorrigible, sexy, and unforgettable. In this all-black cast version of the famous tale, Carmen works on a military base, where—on her way to jail for damaging government property, she seduces her escort, Corporal Joe, away from his sweet fiancée Cindy Lou.

Joe ends up behind bars himself—in the stockade for his failure to execute orders. When he’s released, he gets into a fistfight with a sergeant over this femme fatale, Carmen Jones. Next, he goes AWOL with Carmen to Chicago. 

Once Joe is washed up, Carmen leaves him for champion boxer Husky Miller. The movie ends when Joe, in a fit of madness and lovelorn grief, strangles Carmen in a broom closet after Husky wins his title fight. Until this final scene, Carmen is the decider and the catalyst of every plot turn in the film, and Dandridge plays the role to perfection.

In fact, Dandridge earned her landmark Oscar nomination for this performance, which leads to the second major way this film is a vital artifact. Dandridge was the first black woman to be nominated for Best Actress. In pre-Civil Rights cinema, all-black casts were more or less the only way for black actors to access the full range of characters on screen. Think Stormy Weather or Cabin in the Sky. (Although, Halle Berry was the first black woman to actually win the honor. In 2001.)  

Racial dynamics are complicated by the fact that this film—based on a 1940s musical— was written and directed by white men. And Oscar Hammerstein II’s “black idiom” lyrics have not stood the test of time. A quick glance through the song titles—“Dat’s Love,” “Dere’s a Café on de Corner,” “Dis Flower”—makes that clear enough.

These elided “th” sounds ring endlessly strange in the mouths of Carmen Jones’ cast, a group of serious professionals with acting-school diction.  So, too, with the contraction “I’se,” which replaces “I’m”—screenwriter Harry Kleiner’s contribution to Hammerstein’s work.

Perhaps the most stunning reminder of racial politics comes in the final scene, with Joe’s lament. Wanting to join Carmen in the afterlife, he begs, “String me high on a tree!” Carmen Jones provides a captivating interplay of tacky period aesthetics and—a segregated film—indelible period politics. 

Go see this film at Central Cinema (located in the CD at 19^th & Union), one of my favorite places in Seattle to see a movie.  It’ll only cost you $6 to see the show, and they have beer, wine and a full menu you can order right from your seat!  I highly recommend the gourmet stone oven pizzas.  Carmen Jones opens tonight and will play all week at 7 & 9:30 pm.