While not a bad film by any means, Kazan's "Pinky" is guilty of over-reaching. There are simply too many elements in the dramatic stew. Pinky (Jeanne Crain) returns home from a long period of education and travel to stay with her kindly grandmother (Ethel Waters). While Pinky finds the Southern hospitality unbearable for one of her skin color, her granny convinces her to stay so that she can nurse the ornery local matriarch Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore) back to health. When Miss Em leaves Pinky her property, a bitter legal struggle ensues.
The biggest problem with the film is the absurd casting of Jeanne Crain as the young protagonist. While I'm not against cross-racial casting and I don't consider it inherently wrong or in poor taste, I do think this was a film that could not work with that type of casting. It's simply impossible to take Jeanne Crain seriously when she's shouting things like "I'm a Negro!" or when she's talking about "my people." The two great Ethels try their best of course to lift the basic melodrama into some kind of rarefied Broadway territory, and halfway succeed. But the story itself is problematic in my opinion. We can't get any real sympathy for the boyfriend (William Lundigan), because he's such a stuffed shirt and he wants Pinky to continue playing white. Worse of all is the fact that the conclusion, where Pinky starts a nursing school, is ridiculously obvious halfway through the film yet it's treated as a great revelation.
While raised to a certain point by the good performances and solid direction by Kazan, the film is mired in its own self-seriousness. The look of the film is cheap and stage-bound, recycling the manor house from "Gone With the Wind" and never opening up to anything cinematic. The best thing that can really be said for it, is that it taught Kazan some lessons about directing actors that he probably put to better use in subsequent films.
The biggest problem with the film is the absurd casting of Jeanne Crain as the young protagonist. While I'm not against cross-racial casting and I don't consider it inherently wrong or in poor taste, I do think this was a film that could not work with that type of casting. It's simply impossible to take Jeanne Crain seriously when she's shouting things like "I'm a Negro!" or when she's talking about "my people." The two great Ethels try their best of course to lift the basic melodrama into some kind of rarefied Broadway territory, and halfway succeed. But the story itself is problematic in my opinion. We can't get any real sympathy for the boyfriend (William Lundigan), because he's such a stuffed shirt and he wants Pinky to continue playing white. Worse of all is the fact that the conclusion, where Pinky starts a nursing school, is ridiculously obvious halfway through the film yet it's treated as a great revelation.
While raised to a certain point by the good performances and solid direction by Kazan, the film is mired in its own self-seriousness. The look of the film is cheap and stage-bound, recycling the manor house from "Gone With the Wind" and never opening up to anything cinematic. The best thing that can really be said for it, is that it taught Kazan some lessons about directing actors that he probably put to better use in subsequent films.