Black History Month: Bright Road

Welcome to Romancefest 2022 -- just kidding. Not this year, folks. This year I'm celebrating Black History Month by watching 28 movies in 28 days that are either by Black filmmakers or star Black actors. The Criterion Channel has made it easy for me -- the Black Lives section of their website has tons of great stuff, so much that I had an easy time getting 28 movies but a hard time deciding which 28 I wanted to go with. I've thought about doing this in previous years but just never pulled the trigger. 

The problem with Romancefest is that every year I get closer and closer to running out of worthwhile movies to watch. Also, romantic movies tend to be long. Longer than horror movies, anyway, which always makes Romancefest harder than Horrorfest, even though it's usually a couple days/movies shorter. So, enjoy Black History Month as I start with... 

BRIGHT ROAD 

Directed by Gerald Mayer 

Written by Emmet Lavery 

Based on the short story by Mary Elizabeth Vroman 

Starring Dorothy Dandridge, Philip Hepburn, Harry Belafonte and Barbara Ann Sanders 

USA, 1953 

This is the charming tale of a rookie elementary school teacher's first year teaching in a small rural school, and her attempts to reach out and connect with a troubled student who other teachers have written off. This student isn't an over-the-top troublemaker by any means, but is the kind of frustrating kid who you can tell is smart and engaged when he wants to be, but just isn't motivated to put in all the effort he could when it comes to formal learning. 

He's one of nine kids from poor but loving parents, he loves nature, specifically the bees he keeps for the honey he can sell and the caterpillar he watches all year as it changes into a butterfly. He also loves his schoolmate and neighbor, a kind little girl who ominously starts coughing about halfway through the movie. 

The other key character in the story is the school's principal, a seemingly no-nonsense guy who croons with his acoustic guitar by night and respects a spirited teacher, like our heroine. Together, they try to be understanding and supportive of their troubled student, and while the school year has many ups and downs, there's eventually a happy ending. 

This film was on Criterion's list because of Harry Belafonte -- he stars as the school principal. But the movie really belongs to Dorothy Dandridge, who plays the teacher. She's the main character, and we see things through her eyes. They both get little chances to show their stuff when it comes to singing, but it wasn't until after this that they starred together in CARMEN JONES (see Romancefest 2013 for that one) and really let loose. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the child actors, though, led by Philip Hepburn as the troubled student. This could have been a huge misstep, entrusting so much of a movie to a group of little kids, but they're all great -- very natural and up to the task whether the scene in question is funny, tragic or just cute. An early sequence has Hepburn and Barbara Ann Sanders, as his doomed crush, walking home from school, singing songs with each other, admiring a bird in a tree, singing back and forth with the bird -- sounds a little cloying, but it doesn't come off that way at all. It just comes off as beautiful.