Black History Month: Dirty Gertie from Harlem USA

DIRTY GERTIE FROM HARLEM USA
Directed by Spencer Williams
Written by True T. Thompson
Starring Francine Everett, Don Wilson, Inez Newell, July Jones and Spencer Williams
USA, 1946

In an inadvertently male-centric Black History Month of movies, Spencer Williams gives us one more female-led movie in DIRTY GERTIE FROM HARLEM USA, about a Harlem nightclub performer, Gertie (Francine Everett), who brings her troupe on tour with her to a Caribbean island to perform. She gets her nickname “Dirty Gertie” from the way she picks up men and then discards them, which, as far as I’m concerned, more power to her. But, as far as her ex-boyfriend is concerned, is reason to try to track her down.

Also on the island are a couple of missionaries who view Gertie and her show as a symbol of sin and want the show banned before it takes off. They also obviously lust after her, as pretty much everyone else on the island does, too, from the owner of the hotel that’s hosting Gertie to an American soldier and American sailor who happen to be on the island.

By today’s standards, Gertie’s a strong character who does what she wants without apology. She’s in charge of her own destiny, as much as she can be, and is both a successful business woman (in the realm of show business) and the master of her own love life, choosing who she wants to spend time with and for how long.

Director Spencer Williams has an odd cameo as a fortuneteller who warns Gertie of bad things on the horizon. I say the cameo is odd because the fortuneteller is said to be a woman and Williams plays her with visible facial hair. Tyler Perry, eat your heart out.

As shamelessly religious as Williams’ other movie from this month, THE BLOOD OF JESUS, was, it’s interesting that this one takes a critical eye towards the missionaries, casting them as hypocrites.

The movie was pretty great, and lived up to its great title, except for the ending. I’m not one of those guys who says the ending should always be happy, but it’s a bummer when a character as alive and blameless as Gertie suffers a tragic fate. It’s tempting to think that’s the moral of the story – a woman as free as Gertie will eventually end up punished, so watch out. If that was the intended message, it’s undermined by Francine Everett’s great performance and the movie instead becomes a warning that in a society that hates women, even the greatest of women are at risk of some asshole killing them.