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Black Like Me (film)

1964 film

Summary

1964 film

Field	Value
name	Black Like Me
image	File:BlackLikeMe.1964.jpg
caption	Theatrical release poster
director	Carl Lerner
producer	Julius Tannenbaum
screenplay	Carl Lerner
Gerda Lerner
based_on
starring	James Whitmore
music	Meyer Kupferman
cinematography	Victor Lukens
Henry Mueller II
editing	Lora Hays
studio	The Hilltop Company
distributor	Continental Distributing
released
runtime	107 minutes
country	United States
language	English
budget	$273,000

Gerda Lerner Henry Mueller II

Black Like Me is a 1964 American drama film based on the 1961 book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. The journalist disguised himself to pass as an African-American man for six weeks in 1959 in the Deep South to report on life in the segregated society from the other side of the color line. The film was directed by Carl Lerner and the screenplay was written by Carl and Gerda Lerner. The film stars James Whitmore, Sorrell Booke and Roscoe Lee Browne.

Plot

John Finley Horton is a liberal white journalist who darkens his face and hands (and to some degree his body) using various means, sufficiently to pass for a black man. He travels for several weeks in the Deep South in order to report from the other side of the color line in the segregated society. He spends time in places from New Orleans to Atlanta, and encounters racism from both white and black people.

Cast

James Whitmore as John Finley Horton (Black Like Me author John Howard Griffin)
Sorrell Booke as Dr. Jackson
Roscoe Lee Browne as Christophe
Al Freeman Jr. as Thomas Newcomb
Will Geer as Truck Driver
Robert Gerringer as Ed Saunders
Clifton James as Eli Carr
John Marriott as Hodges
Thelma Oliver as Georgie
Lenka Petersen as Lucy Horton
Richard Ward as Burt Wilson

Reception

Critical reception for the film has been mixed. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described the film as "melodramatic and unsubtle". He said it failed in two ways: to place the viewer inside an African American's skin in the 1960s, and to convince the audience that the protagonist "is truly passing for black".

Reviewing the film after the 2012 DVD release, Leonard Maltin awarded the film a positive 3 out of 4 stars. He said that, although some aspects of the film felt dated, the film's themes were still timely.

Release

The film made its DVD debut on February 12, 2002, by VCI Home Video. It later was re-released by Video Service Corp on December 11, 2012. This DVD release includes a documentary titled Uncommon Vision about John Howard Griffin, the journalist on whom the main character is based.

References

{{rotten-tomatoes. black_like_me. Black Like Me
https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22351-BLACK-LIKEME
"Black Like Me (1964) James Whitmore Stars in Book's Adaptation".
Maltin, Leonard. (2014). "Leonard Maltin's 2014 Movie Guide". [[Penguin Press]].
"Black Like Me (1964) - Carl Lerner". AllMovie.
Hartel, Nick. (February 14, 2013). "Black Like Me: DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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