Pinky (1949) User Reviews

Sincere drama of racial bigotry with outstanding performances...

[Doylenf · 8/10 · 24 May 2005]

Elia Kazan took over the helm of PINKY when John Ford requested replacement as having no real interest in the story. He not only took over, but he did a superb job.

Personally, it took awhile for me to get over the idea of casting JEANNE CRAIN as a light-skinned black, but she does some of her best work here. Same can be said of Ethel Waters and Ethel Barrymore, and not surprisingly, all three actresses were nominated for Oscars. Undoubtedly, all benefited by Kazan's firm direction.

The story is essentially written to show the racial bigotry that existed (and still does) in many parts of the South. Without going into plot development, let's say the ending is a bit predictable, but the film still remains powerful and sensitive in its treatment of the subject matter.

In 1949, this was a daring film for Fox to make, risking the possibility of hurting the reputation of its most popular box-office star at that time, Jeanne Crain. But credit goes to Darryl F. Zanuck for permitting his studio to make films like THE SNAKE PIT and GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT, risky and controversial. The box-office results and critical acclaim justified the risk.

Well worth seeing, absorbing and sensitive.

Passing For White

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 3 February 2010]

What was fascinating and groundbreaking in 1949 is now a bit old fashioned when it comes to the film Pinky. Like Guess Who's Coming To Dinner a generation later, 20th Century Fox and director Elia Kazan went as far as they could and not hurt the box office.

Remember after all even with 'message' pictures, people have to come to the theater to see and get the message.

If it were done 20 years later someone like Lena Horne would have been cast in the part of Pinky. It was the kind of role that Lena wanted to do at MGM, but they wouldn't give her, they wouldn't be that bold. Still I can't fault Jeanne Crain's performance which got her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She lost the Oscar sweepstakes to Olivia DeHavilland for The Heiress.

Crain as Pinky has come home to her southern town after many years of living in the north and passing for white with her light features. As she puts she started when a train conductor escorted to the white section of a train she was riding on back when she left to go to nursing school. Of course the news that she's done that is shocking to her grandmother Ethel Waters who raised her.

It's also a culture shock to Crain to come home and relearn segregated ways after living in the north. When Sammy Davis, Jr. wrote his autobiography Yes I Can he said he learned about racism for the first time in the army. Working in show business with his dad and uncle where he was a child performer like Michael Jackson was with his brothers he was insulated from the realities of the outside world. Show business was a cocoon for Davis just as passing was for Crain's Pinky character. She has some nasty incidents including one with Nina Mae McKinney who resents what she sees as high toned ways.

Still Crain through her grandmother accepts a position to be a nurse companion to grand dame Ethel Barrymore who owns quite a bit of property. Her family is the local gentry there and Barrymore is dying. When Barrymore dies she leaves her estate, house and land to Crain and that gets her blood relatives led by Norma Varden all bent out of joint and ready to contest the will.

Which sets the film up for a trial similar to the one in To Kill A Mockingbird although this is a civil matter. The result of which you'll have to see the film for.

Besides those already mentioned look for sterling performances by Basil Ruysdael as Crain's attorney, William Lundigan as a white doctor who has fallen for Pinky, and Griff Barnett as a sympathetic doctor.

The two Ethels, Barrymore and Waters, both received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress. And as luck would have it Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchester were also nominated in that same category for Come To The Stable. So with two double nominees for two pictures, Mercedes McCambridge went right up the middle and won for her performance in All The King's Men. Made easier of course by the fact that Mercedes was also in the Best Picture of 1949.

Pinky is both old fashioned and groundbreaking. We'd never see casting like this again, but at the same time we can applaud the courage and daring it took for 20th Century Fox to make this film and for Jeanne Crain who got her career role out of it.

White, but black

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 7 July 2005]

Darryl F. Zanuck, the visionary man of the movies, was way ahead of his time when he decided to bring the Cid Ricketts Sumner's book of the same title to the screen. Mr. Zanuck took a gamble with this film that presented the ugly side of racial prejudice still rampant in the land when this 1949 movie was made.

John Ford had been slated to direct, but obviously, he decided not to continue with it. Elia Kazan, the distinguished theater director, was brought on board to substitute for Mr. Huston. It was a good decision because Mr. Kazan was a man with the heart into the right causes who had seen a lot as a struggling man starting in the movies. The screen play by Philip Dunnne and Dudley Nichols was excellent.

At the center of the story we find Pinky, a "colored woman", to utilize the term of used in the film, who is, for all accounts a white person. The fact, is promptly revealed as Pinky, who has graduated as a nurse in a Northern college, returns to her home town to see her grandmother, Granny, as everyone calls her. Right away she is the victim of the hatred so prevalent in that part of the country against people of color.

Pinky is asked to help the dying Ms. Em, Granny's one time employer, who lives in a huge old house nearby. Me. Em is alone and has no one to care for her. Granny shames Pinky into accepting, telling her how Ms. Em, in turn, had taken care of her when she was sick and had no one herself to turn to, something unheard of in those days.

At the same time, Pinky, is of two minds. Her boyfriend, the dashing Dr. Thomas Adams, comes looking for her and learns her secret, but he appears not to care for the fact that she is not white. Pinky's relationship with the old woman is not a happy one, as Ms. Em is hard on her, or so it appears. The only thing that is not made clear in the film, by what happens later on, is how Ms. Em decides to leave the house and her belongings to Pinky in a surprise move that stuns the young woman, her distant relatives and the town, other than to spite everyone and show her gratitude to Granny.

The three women in the principal roles are the best reason for watching the movie. Jeanne Crain, with her beautiful looks, makes an effective contribution as Pinky, the girl that gets much more than what she bargained for. Ethel Barrymore is regal as Ms. Em, the no nonsense Southern woman who sees in Pinky a woman to carry on her dying wishes. Ethel Waters has a much smaller part, but as usual, she does an amazing job as the wise old grandmother.

"Pinky", ultimately, was one of Elia Kazan's best works in his early days as a film director. Although it appears somewhat dated, as racial prejudice is no longer as prevalent as it once was, the film still shows a shameful page of the American history because of the discrimination the blacks suffered in those days.

Love and Pride Conquer Prejudice

[edward-speiran · 21 October 2003]

I've just seen this film for the 3rd time although I'm sure I hadn't seen it for at least 10 years. I had forgotten the depth and intensity of the prejudice displayed in the film. It is taking nothing away from Jeanne Craine's sensitive and beautiful performance to say that the star of the film is Ethel Waters - she is simply a magnificent presence throughout. It is one of those performances where every fibre of being is transmitted thru to the viewer - you cannot help but feel that the character is one of the strongest and bravest women ever shown on screen. Considering the shocking 1950's world of Amos and Andy and the in-every-sense-white-bread fiction world of Hollywood - Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, etc - it is startling to see how movies so transcended the comfort-food level of TV and challenged audiences. This movie belongs, I believe, in the highest echelon of social commentary films - such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Gentlemen's Agreement. Absolute must see!!!

Do-gooder drama purports to be 'brave'...it's more hesitant than anything else

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 10 February 2010]

Racial-issue melodrama has light-skinned black nurse (Jeanne Crain, improbably cast but doing good work) named a recipient in the will of a wealthy white southern dowager whom the nurse took care of in her final days; the will is contested by the deceased woman's greedy cousin, who is shown not only to be racist but a bigot and a liar as well. Atmospheric actors' piece, adapted from Cid Ricketts Sumner's book, allows white actress Crain to have a white boyfriend, but very little contact with the blacks on-screen (Pinky's own people!). There's a balky hesitancy detectable right from the start, and director Elia Kazan does very little to warm up the scenario. Still, the slim plot becomes absorbing by the second-half, with only the audience pulling for the resilient heroine. Crain has been directed to wear a racial chip on her shoulder with both pride and defensiveness (mostly she just looks unhappy). I didn't quite believe her relationship with laundress-grandmother Ethel Waters (who disappears after the courtroom sequence, one in which Pinky doesn't even take the stand in her own defense); however, Crain's misty-eyed, youthful determination brings out something extra in the role which neither the script nor the direction accounted for. She's tough, certainly, and stubborn, but she's also an intelligent presence--nobody's victim--and she garners our respect. Crain, Waters, and Ethel Barrymore (doing her usual dryly-bemused turn) all received Oscar nominations. **1/2 from ****

Top-notch all the way

[blanche-2 · 9/10 · 8 April 2006]

Black people "passing for white" was not a new topic for Hollywood in 1949. It was part of the plot of "Imitation of Life" in 1934, but in that film, an actual black actress, Fredi Washington, played the role of the young woman who "passes" in the white world. In 1949, there were two films dealing with this issue: "Pinky" and "Lost Boundaries," and in both cases, the black person was played by a white actor.

"Pinky" stars Jeanne Crain as Pinky Johnson, a black woman who looks white, so much so that she when she studies nursing in New York, she easily enters the white world and becomes involved with a white doctor who wants to marry her. Needing time to think over her situation, she returns home, which is a shack where her grandmother (Ethel Waters) lives in a black section of their southern town. There she is reminded of the prejudice and cruelty she left. When her grandmother asks her to care for an elderly white woman (Ethel Barrymore), hostility between patient and nurse leads to an uneasy bond.

This is a brilliant film all the way, magnificently directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, who loved taking on these controversial social issues. The acting is superb: Jeanne Crain gives the best performance of her career as a woman who comes to grips with her true identity. She is so dignified as she walks through the town, soft-spoken yet strong, refusing to come down to the level of those around her. Ethel Barrymore is the elderly terminally ill woman Pinky reluctantly agrees to care for, and she nearly steals the movie with a no-nonsense performance. She's a woman set in her ways and opinions, but she's fair person who can see the human soul. It's probably the best drawn character in the film.

As a teen-aged fan of "Route 66," I can well remember the publicity around the show when Ethel Waters guest-starred. Of course white teens in the '60s had no idea of who she was or the circumstances of her life and career. Yet to this day I can remember her on that show. Forty years later, thankfully, I have an appreciation of her place in history and her work. Waters gives a powerful performance. Her character has accepted her lot in life but sacrifices everything so that her grandchild can have a better one. In her world, white men have the power, and you can clearly see her belief manifested in her courtroom demeanor.

The casting of Jeanne Crain is a sticking point here but not really when looked at in the context of the 1940s. Even with this casting, this is a bold movie, uncompromising in its depiction of white attitudes and racial slurs. It is just a pity that at the time of the filming, Fredi Washington was 45 years old and actually no longer in films. Washington looked so white that she was told by producers that if she would agree to "pass" and play white roles, she could have a career equal to that of Norma Shearer. She refused, and in order to play black women, she had to darken her skin. Lena Horne was deemed not white-looking enough. I suggest that the same is true for the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge. There may have been black actresses who looked white enough to play this role, but would anyone have answered such a casting call? Most importantly, "Pinky" would not have been made without Jeanne Crain, because Zanuck wanted her to do it, and it's a film that deserved making. The other sticking point in the film is Pinky's fiancée, a white doctor. His easy acceptance of her as black - and the fact that she kept it from him - is a weakness in the script. This was done perhaps to highlight that he wanted to her to continue to pass for white, therefore making it clear that Pinky has to the make the decision, but the scenario does not seem believable.

You can predict the ending of "Pinky," and despite complaints that it's a typically neat Hollywood one, I found it immensely satisfying as I found the entire experience of watching this truly classic film, "Pinky."

Passing for White

[evanston_dad · 7/10 · 5 December 2019]

"Pinky" stars Jeanne Crain as a young black woman who has been passing for white but who returns to her hometown out of a sense of conflict about abandoning her heritage and her loving grandmother (played by Ethel Waters). If you're concerned about how cringe-inducing a movie from 1949 trying to tackle subject matter this prickly might be, don't worry. We're in the hands of Elia Kazan, so even if the treatment might feel dated today, it's still nowhere nearly as maudlin as it might have been in the hands of a director with less confidence.

I'm not generally a big Jeanne Crain fan, but she's pretty good in this. It requires a herculean suspension of disbelief to accept her as a black woman, even as one who's supposed to strongly resemble a white woman. But if you can get past that, the story itself, and the way the film decides to handle the situations a woman stuck between two cultures might face, is presented well. Ethel Barrymore plays a Southern dowager living in a decaying plantation, and much of the film's conflict arises from Pinky's relationship with her. She associates Barrymore's character, and what she represents, with slavery and oppression of black people, while Pinky's grandmother tries to make her see the old lady as a person who's done a lot of good and should be considered separately from the institution she's a part of and has largely helped to build. This is a conundrum that still exists when discussing the issue of racism today -- racism as it's exercised by individuals and racism as it exists as an institution many times feel like two different things altogether, and it's hard for someone who wants to try hard not to be part of the problem to know how and when to draw a line between the two. So while "Pinky" perhaps lets its white characters off the hook a little to easily by modern day standards, it still deserves credit for being pretty ahead of its time.

Crain received the only Oscar nomination of her career as Best Actress, while both Ethels were nominated in the Supporting Actress category. Waters is good, but it's Barrymore who commands the screen. No one did irascible battle axe better than her, and it's a tribute to her that in not much screen time she turns this grand dame into a complex character with several facets rather than a caricature inserted only to service the plot of the film.

Grade: A-

A truly Great Film - a woman's film that rivals Peck's "Mockingbird"

[DAHLRUSSELL · 10/10 · 11 December 2006]

We'll know we've "arrived" when people can get past the casting of Jeanne Crain as a woman of color. There ARE mixed race women who are as light as Jeanne Crain, but because of the "one drop rule," in 1949 they were, and often still today are -considered "black." In today's multi-cultural society these women often embrace their heritage, but the issues they face remain sadly the same today in many facets. Example: African Americans who are educated are often told they are "talking white."

There is a reason that "she's passing" became an understood term. Very light skinned women & men in the early part of the 1900s DID try to do what Pinky here does.

I was really encouraged to see the scene with Nina Mae McKinney next to Frederick O'Neal, next to Jeanne Crain, all playing "black folks." THAT is the reality of miscegenation in the South, and that is what people still have trouble with: sometimes race is not just black and white. It is uncomfortable and true. (McKinney is marvelous, and fills every second of her screen time, whether she is removing a pebble from her shoe or coyly playing piano on top of a fence.)

I sadly find this film completely relevant today. These conversations of segregation and intermarriage are STILL going strong. There are African Americans who talk about "white women taking our men" or people of all races saying, "stay with your own race." This is segregationist, this is racist, and it still exists very strongly in all racial communities.

Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne- both beautiful & talented - are often mentioned as possible contenders for this role. They simply were NOT light enough to pass for white, it hampered their careers, and they have both acknowledged that. Hollywood in general likes their races obvious, casting is still largely done by type and stereotype, no matter what race – even today it would be hard to find an actress of stature who identifies herself as black, but who can totally pass as white; the market doesn't hire these women.

Type casting is still the norm. Even my dark skinned actress friends have been told they don't "talk black enough" in auditions. Ethel Waters and Ethel Barrimore here, both fine actresses at the top of their game, were both type cast here in roles that they've basically played several times before; it is only the script context that made this special.

Jeanne Crain had enormous courage to portray this role. Not only is she perpetually faulted for being a white woman playing this role, but she risked her career, some people questioned her heritage in a racist age. That is a tribute to the reality and sensitivity she brought to the role, and her acting, which is often maligned because she had reserve. Her "under acting" is actually the preferred style today in TV and film. She was ahead of her time.

Part of why Crain is not liked much today is that she was a 40s type that is not valued today. Restrained, ladylike, mature in mindset, "high minded" - this is what she represented, and these things are not looked for in leading ladies today. What she represents has gone out of fashion; it was going out of fashion even then, and Kazan valued grittier, dirtier types like Brando. Kazan, who initially labeled her an impassive beauty queen, eventually credited her fine work.

This movie is sensitively done in all respects with really great performances top to bottom. It is not glossy or simple, neither race is solely good or solely bad. It is a disservice to have the only DVD commentary done by someone who clearly still does not like the film and doesn't appreciate the complexity of Crain's work here. That a New Yorker thought the court trial didn't look real because people were all fanning themselves shows he has never spent time in the south in a public gathering place.

This film is galling and aggravating, and unfortunately still very real. This is not a fun film, it is a great film, that speaks just as much to attitudes held today as it did then.

Too White

[gamay9 · 7/10 · 3 February 2010]

I feel that the user reviews were articulate and genuine but the casting improper. Jeanne Crain is too fair to portray a black woman. A better choice would have been Jennifer Jones. It is not only skin color, but features. As beautiful as Halle Berry is, for example, she is not as white as Jeanne Crain. The grouchy relative of Ms. Em even said: "Why, she's whiter than me."

The film is good but the one thing that left me disappointed was this one factor. I know women who have no black heritage in their ancestory yet they have a darker complexion and broader features than Ms. Crain.

Trite point? Probably, but it distracted me from the essence of the film.

The Racism in Your Face

[wes-connors · 9/10 · 26 November 2008]

Well-mannered nurse Jeanne Crain (as Patricia "Pinky" Johnson) returns to her poor "Black" neighborhood, in Mississippi. There, she is welcomed by washerwoman grandmother Ethel Waters (as Granny). The pair are confronted by racism both outside and inside their home. Most importantly, it is revealed that Ms. Crain has been "passing" as "White". Moreover, Crain has become engaged to Caucasian doctor William Lundigan (as Thomas Adams). While working at home, to support Crain's nursing education, Ms. Waters has grown close to ailing Ethel Barrymore (as Miss Em). At first, Crain does not understand or accept the friendship between Waters, a former slave, and Ms. Barrymore, a former plantation owner. But, for her grandmother, Crain agrees to become Barrymore's nurse.

"Pinky" is a nerve-rattling classic.

Probably, the most obvious "debate" point was the casting of Crain in the title role. Crain was definitely "pink" enough (or, white-looking); but, her general "movie star" persona makes the casting decision seem risky. Yet, Crain, under Elia Kazan's direction, triumphs. There are so many ways Crain could have fallen into acting traps - she could have used mannerisms, make-up, and/or other stereotypical devices to "camp" up the "Black" - but, she avoids each trap. Crain performs the role with a great amount of dignity. She was deservedly honored with an "Academy Award" nomination.

Barrymore and Waters also perform well (as you might expect).

We are never, in the film, given a clear statement of facts regarding the heritage of Crain's "Pinky". My guess is that she is related, by blood, to both Waters and Barrymore. An attempted rape of Crain's character accounts, arguably, for her pink appearance; this might have occurred in more than one generation. It's also possible that a loving "mixed race" relationship was part of either Ethel's past. Making the "Black/White" history more clear would have only gotten the film into more trouble.

"Pinky" was quickly censored, and headed for the US Supreme Court.

One of the Board of Censors' objections was, "a white man retaining his love for a woman after learning that she is a Negro." However, Mr. Lundigan's "Thomas" is only willing to retain his love under certain conditions; and, this leads to a sharp, less "Hollywood"-styled ending. The Supreme Court was correct. Some of the film's best scenes show the way Crain is treated after other characters learn she is not white.

********* Pinky (9/29/49) Elia Kazan ~ Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, William Lundigan

Not bad... but there is a reason this is far from Kazan's best known film...

[IngmarTheBergman · 6/10 · 22 January 2013]

THE FILM: Pinky is not a particularly well-know film, and there are very few people who would indeed consider it to as a film that deserves to be well known. Pinky is the kind of film you watch because you are a fan of Elia Kazan. That said, an interesting fact I recently discovered about the film is that John Ford was originally appointed to direct the film, however, producer Darryl F. Zanuck fired Ford since he was unsatisfied on the constant delays he was getting from John Ford. Zanuck decided to call Elia Kazan who was in New York at the time. Kazan was not too fond of the screenplay, but he felt he owed Zanuck a favor as it was Zanuck who commenced Kazan's career in film. Lena Horne was initially hired to play the role of Pinky but the studio decided to go with Jeanne Crain instead as they wanted there to be no way to tell that Pinky was of African American decent. This was never one of Kazan's most popular films. It is currently considered to be his one of his lightest films, even though it is not a comedy and like all his films it is a commentary on American life.

THE PLOT: Pinky is an African-American woman with light skin. After graduating from a North American nursing school she returns to her grandmother who lives in the South. We learn that when Pinky was in the northern part of the U.S. she did not divulge information of her African American decent to any of her colleges. To make matters more difficult, Pinky has fallen in love with an doctor who knows nothing of her African-American nationality. Pinky desires to leave the south immediately to return to the north where she can be treated properly. Her grandmother convinces her to stay so Pinky can nurse a wealthy white woman, Mrs. Em. Pinky agrees in resentment and she slowly begins to believe she is headed down the same road her grandmother went down.

At first, tension is high between Pinky and Mrs. Em, but as time passes and Mrs. Em's state of health deteriorates they are met with a quiet but un-deniable respect and friendship. They soon realize how naive they were. Mrs. Em resented Pinky due to her black heritage and Pinky resented Mrs. Em because of how she treated 'Negroes'. This begins a very surprising and short-lived friendship that draws closure to racial barriers in Mrs. Em's life.

THE CRITICISM: Pinky is a naive melodrama that does very little more than accept the fact that the world we live in is one of racial prejudice. Unlike the 1962 masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pinky has a very childish view on racism. The best example of this is a spoiler. This is not a particularly amazing ending or a particularly amazing film for that matter, but should you desire to find watch this film, do not read on. In the end when Pinky abandoned the doctor she loved and turns Mrs. Em's mansion that she inherited into a nursing home for young black woman it presents the impossible situation of racism to be stopped by one person. It seems as if everything is right in the small Southern town after Pinky's action come through. I admire Kazan for trying to comment on a cause that certainly needed commenting on, but I wish he could have done it better. As well, this was among the first films to condemn racism. It is hard to believe that just 34 years before Pinky the film The Birth of a Nation was considered a cinematic masterpiece. The Birth of a Nation promotes the K.K.K.

The following point was not a major issue for me, but I know it was a problem for several people who watched the film. Jeanne Crain is supposed to play an African-American woman. How did that happen? Yes, I understand that she is supposed to be Caucasian but it is still difficult to expand our disbelief. We know Pinky's parents are dead, perhaps they inter-racially bred? I have read reviews by average people who watched Pinky and could not get their head around the fact that Pinky was of African American heritage. Pinky would have worked more should Kazan had made an effort to at least find a resemblance between Pinky and her grandmother.

I might as well add that the acting in Pinky was quite good on behalf of Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Waters. However, I wish they had given us a little more time to witness the way in which the relationship between Pinky and Mrs. Em deepens.

Pinky is not a terrible film. However I wish Kazan could have approached the subject of social and racial justice in a more honest manner instead of being so falsely inspirational. Pinky is a sugarcoated and heartwarming film where it should have been raw, aggressive and truthful to the way the world is.

2 Ethels + 1 Kazan = Classic

[David-240 · 9/10 · 1 August 1999]

It is not very "in" to like Elia Kazan right now, because he named names in the McCarthy witch-hunts and just received an honorary Oscar, but what a brilliant director he was. And if he didn't show much courage in the Fifties, he sure did in the Forties when he tackled racial prejudice head-on in two excellent movies: "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Pinky" (John Ford is said to have chickened-out of directing this one). "Pinky" is not as good as "Gentleman's Agreement", but it ain't half bad either. Here we see a deeply prejudiced South where black girls are attacked on the streets and shops refuse them service. The scenes are realistic, even brutally filmed, and the language strong for its day.

I'm sure Kazan must have been dismayed to have been given a Hollywood starlet to play the complex lead character - a black woman who looks white - but he managed to extract a damn good performance out of Jeanne Crain. The supporting cast is flawless, down to the smallest role. Kazan knew how to direct actors. Evelyn Varden deserves special mention as a vicious Southern matron. But the most praise must be reserved for the two Ethels - Waters and Barrymore - who are nothing short of brilliant.

Okay, the ending's a little dicky, and predictable, but the intentions of the film-makers are sincere and the results must have been revolutionary in 1949. I love the way Kazan shoots his movies too - long unbroken sequences and tracking shots, and excellent use of light and shadow - both of which probably coming from his stage experience. Kazan combined a strong ability to work with actors and a keen cinematic eye to create some of the best dramatic films of the century. And "Pinky" is one of these.

WHITE LIKE ME

[mmthos · 7/10 · 16 October 2020]

This is the bluntest, most straightforward and incisive drama on race relations I've ever seen, and from 1949!

Pinky is a "colored" southern woman who passes for white (Jeanne Crain, who had no trouble passing for white, considering), goes north, gets a nursing degree, falls in love with a (white) doctor, then goes back home when she finds it impossible to tell him her "terrible truth"

The story is presented as a "Moral Fable" and as such seems taken from a series of latter-day lithographs entitled "Scenes from the Segregated South, Mid 20th Century" Yet, though shot entirely on finely crafted, but ultimately phony film sets, the effect achieved manages to be truer than any merely physical reality, and every scene evinces fundamental aspects of the frustration and malice of race prejudice and inequality.

Ethel Barrymore, as crumudgeonly cantankerous Mistress/Benefactor/friend Miss Em and Ethel Waters, as kindly, ever-positive servant/caregiver/companion Aunt Dicey are in their elements and steal the show, As Aunt D says when Pinky refers to "knowing her place" with "Missus.Em": "There's no knowing place between friends." even though their places are a faded ante-bellum mansion and a poor tumble-down shack, respectively. Both Ethels grabbed best supporting Oscar noms, Waters being the second actor of color to be so honored.

The plot includes horrifying incidents of racial abuse, and a frightening scene of a kangaroo court when colored Pinky dares to assert her right to the estate rich ole white lady Miss Em has left her, which, according to long-standing southern tradition, Just Isn't Done!

Fortunately, though unlikely in real life, there's a Hollywood happy ending here in which Pinky is finally content living "Her Truth"

Nothing against Miss Crain, who the Academy recognized in the best actress category for this performance, but this was another role in which Lena Horne would have KILLED, denied her due to the necessity of engaging in love scenes with a WHITE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they could slap Max Factor "Light Egyptian" all over Ava Gardner for "Showboat", they should've slapped Elizabeth Arden "Lily White" all over Lena and LET 'ER RIP! . .

Still should be seen

Tough to watch...

[cbryce59 · 3/10 · 22 July 2012]

Many movies do not hold up over the years, regardless of how well they are made, due to the times changing. But this movie tries too hard...it wants to be ground-breaking but does not want to offend the whites who are harboring their prejudices, so they try to please everyone, racist and liberals, and it comes off as entirely phony. Why make this movie at all, if you are going to cater to the racists in the end? Pinky is not a very sympathetic character and her doctor boyfriend even less so. He wants her, even after finding out she is part black, but only if she goes back to pretending she isn't. But of course, they can't end up together, because the audiences of the day wouldn't stand for it, even though the actors are both clearly white.

I know the studios had to pander to the ridiculous censorship code, but I think they would have been better off not making films that so clearly are hamstrung by the "rules" of the code.

Hollywood made some ridiculous movies over the years, with various white actors playing Pacific Islanders or Asians for part of the movie, only to later "discover" that they were really white, so they could have the white hero in the end. This is a kind of reverse, but comes off just as phony and stilted.

Some of the acting is fine, but the script is so leaden, it hardly matters. And Jeanne Crain delivers too many of her lines from between clenched teeth in an effort to appear taut and simmering. It just looks stiff. She must know how ridiculous her casting was.

I also know movie-goers of the day were used to the phony sets, but they play better in some movies than in others. This one looks as fake as can be the whole time.

Viewing a film 40 years later

[IRVIN8 · 18 October 2001]

I saw this film some years after it came out, in a Texas Baptist orphans home, as a preadolescent. In the years to follow, I developed a fascination for Ethel Waters, esp. when I saw her interpretation of Carson McCuller's "A Member of the Wedding".

When I saw the film tonight on American Movie Classics, a lot of years had passed since first having seen it. Ethel Waters' performance struck me as cowed and subservient. In the court scene while being questioned by the plaintiff's council, she actually flinched when he raised his voice. ...And I'm thinking, 'Damn, that woman is really intimidated.' Having read her autobio, as well as a bio on her, I'm aware that not one woman in a million suffered through a similar childhood: a b*****d born of a 13-year-old rape victim - unwanted and shuffled from pillar to post to eventually become a washerwoman...it's a wonder she survived.

Yet survive she did. Not surprisingly, she had a monster chip on her shoulder. It is my understanding that John Ford, the man who was to direct "Pinky", had such a run-in with Miss Waters that he quit, and Kazan took over. The word is that neither could stand the sight of the other.

The movie is an important one - and I'd like to think that the reason goes beyond the juxtapositioning of America's treatment of blacks in the Forties with today's suffocating PC standards. There is the understated acting, for one thing. Ethel Barrymore always played the dignified albiet intimidating elderly lady in her later years. Yet in "Pinky", she is strong without being absurdly powerful. How well that woman delivers her lines...!

What I also liked was, while the white majority were unkind to Pinky, I can attest as a Southerner (well, Texan), that Kazan presented them truthfully. He only demonized one woman: the older cousin-plaintiff.

It is surprising that this film wasn't presented in a more gritty format; that there wasn't more preaching in it, that it wasn't condescending to whites. None of these failings mar this splendid film. Forty years after having seen it, I realize a superb gentleness that isn't to be found in American films. At a guess, that's because a generation ago most films were made for 30-and-over adults, whereas today they're almost exclusively made for 13 - 25 year olds.

I will give "Pinky" my highest compliment: It is literary.

Pinky

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 4 January 2023]

Jeanne Crain is the eponymousous young nurse - of mixed race - trying to get by in her grandmother's Southern town. She takes a shine to local (white) doctor "Adams" (William Lundigan) but when her ethnicity becomes better knows, however, that all goes awry. Determined to head back to the more enlightened territories in the North, she is persuaded to stay and tend to a wealthy infirm lady "Miss Em" (Ethel Barrymore). Initially frosty, the two women gradually start to respect one and other, and she also begins to earn the appreciation of her doctor "McGill" (Griff Barnett). The old lady's death and subsequent will leaves "Pinky" and the whole town in a quandary that highlights bigotry and greed in equal measure. This is a powerful story with a strong ensemble cast. I could have done with some more of Barrymore - if only to further exemplify how these two characterful women developed their relationship, but there are good contributions from Ethel Walters and Even Varden as the rather odious "Melba" to compensate a little. The production is fine, it flows well with succinct dialogue and Elia Kazan makes the most of the original Sumner novel. The racism that this reflects is writ large and makes for a powerful piece of cinema.

Love and prejudice

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 28 May 2020]

Although it was controversial at the time, 'Pinky' is very highly regarded by most now. And rightly so. The cast is a great one, the most familiar cast member to me being Ethel Barrymore. Have said elsewhere about my high admiration for Elia Kazan and most of his films. 'Pinky' was most intriguing to me though for its subject of racism and bigotry, it was a very relevant theme at the time and very prominent and was very brave to address on film and sadly it is still.

'Pinky' turned out to be a great film, with so many brilliantly done things. Not quite one of Kazan's very finest, but close to being up there and close to being a near-classic. Really appreciated that it did tackle a subject like this, a topical one and important to address despite it hitting so close to home for many at the time and now, and appreciated even more so how it tackled it. Even if 'Pinky' isn't one of Kazan's best, it is one of his most sincere films and a contender for the bravest in a filmography where all the themes in all his films were quite courageously heavy and complex.

The production values are very high, lots of atmosphere in the art direction enhanced by the quite beautiful cinematography. Kazan's direction never feels self-indulgent or heavy-handed, and he seemed like he was at ease with the material and like he knew what he wanted to do with it. Alfred Newman always was a great film composer, one of the best at the time and his style was a distinctive one, one that was always sumptuous and stirring without ever over-bearing the atmosphere. That's the case here in 'Pinky'.

Moreover, 'Pinky' is sensitively scripted, making its points without hammering home. The dialogue was intelligently written and concise enough to not feeling too rambling. The story is a very emotionally powerful one, one that really hits hard and makes for unflinching viewing. Yet doing so without being prejudicial or one-sided, or with a complete lack of subtlety, actually being done with a lot of poignant sincerity that helps make it a real tear-jerker of a film. It is not "outdated" at all in my view, the subject was very relevant back then and sadly it still is, it is also one that has always been bold to portray on film and worthy of admiration whenever it is regardless of its execution.

Characters are well realised and don't seem like one-dimensional stereotypes sugar-coated or ham-fisted. Coming over like real human beings. The uniformly fine performances help, while Jeanne Crain is very moving and gives one of her best performances it's a magnificent Ethel Waters that comes off strongest.

Weak link, the only one really, is the very easily foreseeable and too tidily tied up ending.

Overall, exceptionally well done and very brave. 9/10

Questions Of Identity, Justice And Pride

[sddavis63 · 7/10 · 25 April 2012]

There's a lot going on in this very well made and very courageous (for its time) movie. It deals with questions of identity, justice and pride. It was directed by Elia Kazan, one of the great directors, who took the job after replacing another great director - John Ford, who left because of differences wit producer Darryl Zanuck.

"Pinky" is the title character - interestingly enough played by white actress Jeanne Crain, after black actresses such as Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge were rejected by Zanuck. I say "interestingly" because the character of Pinky is a "Negro" (in the language of the day) - a Negro with very light skin, whose southern grandmother sent her off to the north to school to become a nurse. While north, Pinky began to "pass" - others assumed because of her skin colour that she was "white", and much of the first part of the movie is about Pinky's struggles to adjust to being back in the south when she returns home. She's suddenly confronted with the reality of racial prejudice; she yearns to go back to the north. But her grandmother (Ethel Walters) wants her to stay and become the nurse to a white neighbour, Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore.) Pinky reluctantly agrees, and after an uncertain start bonds with Miss Em and becomes the heir to Miss Em's house and land after her death.

At this point, the movie becomes about justice, and it's very well done. It's unthinkable that a black woman would receive such an inheritance. Those who expected to be the heirs challenge the will in court, and the struggle is a nasty one. Pinky wants what's rightfully hers, but is it worth the cost and the risk? After winning the case, her lawyer says to her (in the line that really stood out for me): "Well Pinky. You won. You got the house and the land. You got justice. But I doubt if any other interests of this community have been served." This was her own lawyer speaking. Shouldn't justice be the interest of the community? What other interests are there? What other interests are so important that her own lawyer apparently feels that receiving "justice" may not have been the best thing? But when the justice was being given to a black woman - even if she didn't look black - apparently there were other important things to consider. There's a sense of foreboding about this part of the movie; a fear that a mob mentality is going to break out; that violence will be the end result of the court case.

The movie ends on a note of pride, as Pinky chooses to reject the possibility of leaving with her white fiancé from the north and instead stays and helps a local black doctor open a clinic and nursery school for black children in the house she inherited. In other words, Pinky chooses to embrace her heritage and her people. It was a very touching end to a somewhat troubling movie.

Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Walters were all nominated for Academy Awards for their performances, and I can certainly appreciate that it was a courageous movie for 1949, dealing with the harsh reality of racism, and even featuring (if mostly in the background) the inter- racial relationship between Pinky and her fiancé Tom (William Lundigan,) which apparently (even though Crain was a white actress) caused the movie to be banned in some southern communities. (7/10)

Why a White Woman??

[abbiegirl-78661 · 10/10 · 10 October 2018]

Many people here have criticized this film for using a white actress (Jeanne Crain) in the lead, feeling instead they should've used a biracial actress. I came here to offer some suggestions as to why a white woman would've been cast in that role.

1- it would've been hard to cast a white man in the role of the fiancé. In 1949 it would've been career suicide for a white actor to kiss and African-American actress.

2- This was 1949. Back then how many white people would have gone to see a movie that started an African American actress? Not many I'll bet!

I can't say more about this movie because I'm viewing it for the first time right now and I'm only about halfway through it. So far I'm enjoying it immensely!

Fair Drama

[kenjha · 7/10 · 26 December 2012]

It is interesting that a light-skinned black actress was not chosen to play the title role; perhaps this decision was made with an eye on box office. There is nothing about Crain that suggests that she's even one percent black, straining the credibility of the story. Having said that, Crain does a fine job of conveying the frustrations of a person treated as sub-human because of her race. She is well supported by the two Ethels, with Waters particularly effective as Crain's grandmother. As is often the case with Kazan, he overplays the issue to some extent. Everything is black and white (so to speak); there are no gray areas in the way the characters behave.

Brave for its time

[preppy-3 · 8/10 · 12 March 2006]

A light skinned black woman Pinky (Jeanna Crain) returns home to the deep South. She had been at school in the North passing as white and getting her training as a nurse. She's also fallen in love with a handsome, white doctor who knows nothing about her past. It's clear that Pinky HATES being black...but everybody in that town knows she is. She's going to leave but her grandmother (Ethel Waters) asks her to take care a sick mean white woman (Ethel Barrymore) who's near death. Pinky starts to learn to not be ashamed of who she is.

This film was well ahead of its time. In the late 1940s racism was alive and well in the US and this film attacked it. It also showed a black woman who's ashamed of being who she is because of white society. Those were revolutionary ideas at the time. Also there are some disgusting sequences in here that are now almost impossible to watch--the "n" word is used casually; the acts of racism are truly cruel and there's a harrowing scene where Pinky is almost raped just for being black! Still, these scenes need to be shown to see how terrible conditions once were. Still, the picture isn't as brave as it thinks it is. The ending was, for me, entirely predictable and way too "happy".

Top production values help and all the acting is great. Crain (who was white) pulls off a difficult role and was nominated for an Academy Award. Waters and Barrymore are also just great in their roles. This is dated (of course) but still powerful and well worth seeing. For some reason this film just disappeared over the years but now it's back and being rediscovered. Worth catching.

On flesh inheritance

[jgcorrea · 6/10 · 28 November 2019]

Will Pinky, a light-skinned black woman who returns home to Mississippi after attending nursing school in the North, return to where she can live a lie as a white woman and be treated with respect? Or will she stay in the South and be subjected to cruel behavior, the fruit of double standards of inequality? Pinky's script develops a strong moral dilemma, but it hasn't worn very well. Its historical importance must be pointed out in that there's no overlooking the fact that it confronted controversy. It's reflective of those times (1949) that a black actress was by no means considered for the protagonist. I am not a great admirer of Pinky - it might perhaps have been braver, although considering the times it did take a lot of courage from producer Zanuck. It's neither as powerful nor gutsy as other Kazan essays., but quite possibly played a small part in the progress of equality acceptance as we see it today. Jeanne Crain was far from ideal as Pinky, though she gave the performance of her career in the role. She's supposed to be someone who has unquestionably passed as white after she left her home town. Her boyfriend never questions or even thinks about her being anything other than white. Cast alternatives such as Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge or Nina Mae McKinney didn't look white (and McKinney was almost 40). Maybe Linda Darnell or someone like that could have been more believable, looks-wise, than Crain, who was a blue-eyed redhead. But the movie is black & white. if they had really wanted to cast a black actress, they'd have had to search for one who might truly pass as white, which would not have been easy. Anyway, all that fuss and... Bother - Pinky still has some power to raise the emotions present in the story, in the interesting characters, and in the courtroom scene - incidentally as good as any.

Controversial exploration of the problems of being a light-skinned African American in an environment of strong racial prejudice

[weezeralfalfa · 8/10 · 19 July 2017]

I know that the occasional African American could be as fair as Jeanne Crain, and I know that Jeanne did a great job in her role, but I think the story would have been notably more believable, if a dark-skinned Caucasian, such as Linda Darnell, Yvonne de Carlo, or Ava Gardner, had been given the role of Pinky. In fact, Yvonne later did play such a woman, in "Band of Angles". Her character had been raised as a Kentucky southern belle. But, upon her father's death, it was revealed that she had a small amount of negro inheritance, should be considered African American, and therefore could be sold as a slave to cover her father's remaining debts.

There are 2 obvious villains in Ms. Wooley and her maid Rozelia. That would include Ms. Wooley's lawyer in the contested will trial. But, in a sense, Pinky's white Boston boyfriend is also a villain, in that he wants her to hide the fact that she has some African ancestry, and be his wife in a white society. This conflicts with her desire to follow the wishes of her benefactor: the white Miss Em, who left her decaying mansion and surrounding land to Pinky, with the hope that she would do something important with it. Pinky has a dream(later realized)of turning the property into a combo medical clinic and nursery school: an odd combination. Several doctors are connected with this clinic.

Along with the 3 lead women, there are a couple of male heros in this story. First, is Judge Walker, who served as Pinky's council at the trial over the legitimacy of Miss Em's will. Despite the absence of his key witness, due to conflicting obligations, he did well enough to convince the judge, who also deserves credit for standing up to popular prejudice in making his decision.

Several incidents are meant to illustrate the point that whether Pinky was considered white or negro much affected how she was treated. In the altercation between Pinky and African American Rozelia, the police assumed she was white, and thus assumed that Rozelia was at fault. When they were told otherwise, they arrested both Pinky and Rozelia. ...When Pinky was walking home after dark, 2 drunk men in a car came by and assumed she was white, offering a ride. But when they surmised she must be an African American, they tried to rape her...When Ms. Wooley and Pinky were in a store, Pinky finished first, but Ms. Wooley objected that, as a white person, she should be waited on first.

Jeanne received a nomination for best actress, and both Ethel Barrymore, and Ethel Waters received a nomination for best supporting actress, for playing Ms. Em, and Dicy(Pinky's grandmother), respectively.

Nothing To Be Ashamed Of.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 2 December 2010]

John Ford is said to have directed part of this but, as it developed, he and Ethel Waters couldn't stand one another and Ford turned the helm over to Elia Kazan. (It doesn't look typical of the work of either man.) Basically, the eponymous character is a registered nurse who has left her job in Boston and returned to her childhood home in the African-American neighborhood of a rural Southern town. She lives with her black grandmother although Pinky herself couldn't look more "white" if she'd been Jeanne Crain or somebody.

At first, as Crain wanders about the little town, folks think she's white but when it is revealed that she has a black grandmother, Ethel Waters, she's treated with the amiable disdain blacks in the rural South had to get along with in 1949.

The scene in which her True Colors are revealed is emblematic. Crain visits a black man in the seedier part of the colored neighborhood. Taking note of this, a young black woman is seized with jealousy. An altercation erupts. The redneck cops arrive and break up the fight, and when the black woman says something like, "She ain't nothing but a colored gal herself," the cops slap her around. The Head Cop turns to Crain and asks with a chuckle, "It ain't true, is it?" Upon finding that it IS, the cops slap CRAIN around! It's interesting, from a sociological point of view, that Jeanne Crain, despite her severe hair style, looks and acts as white as any of the good townsfolk. It's that drop of black blood that is the criterial attribute. Genetically she may be only one sixteenth African, but she's coded as "colored" by everyone who knows about it. This is known as "the social construction of reality." She's colored not because she's mostly of African descent but because everyone agrees that she's colored. The same is true of Halle Berry (half "white") and Barack Obama (our first "black" president).

Jeanne Crain as Pinky demonstrates her range as an actress, which isn't much but isn't dismissable either. She's a beautiful woman and in "Leave Her To Heaven", a few years earlier, was radiant. But there she was cheerful and self contained, and here she's sullen and pouting -- and that's about it. Ethel Waters gets the job done. Ethel Barrymore does rather more than that, and the supporting players do a professional job.

One thing that struck me is that, except for a couple of incidents, race really played little part in the story. An outsider from Boston disrupts the little town and insinuates herself into the good graces (and the will) of the town's richest dying old lady. The mansion and its contacts go to the damned Yankee nurse instead of the local folks who know tradition when they see it.

No one should be ashamed of his or her participation in this production. It's the product of seasoned talent, except for Elia Kazan who was just getting started. It doesn't preach. There are no Big Speeches about racism. In fact, the retired judge who sees to it that Crain gets Barrymore's mansion leaves her, saying that the outcome of the trial contesting the will, though it has gotten Crain the crumbling mansion, will bring no advantages to the community. That thought is insightful and neatly expressed.

The denouement is improbable in the extreme. It's unlikely that Pinky would decide to stay in that rude community, much less turn her old mansion into a school for children. And it's frankly IMPOSSIBLE that when her white doctor boyfriend from Boston arrives, eager for marriage, she would throw him out and decide to stay with "her own kind." A NURSE -- rejecting an opportunity to marry a DOCTOR? The last shot has the camera descend on Crain's glowing face as she rings the bell for Em's School For Girls to start. A heavenly choir may be heard. She's found fulfillment. That happily sentimental shot could have come from John Ford, who sides with tradition even if nobody else does.

Too cute for how serious it wants to be

[funkyfry · 5/10 · 6 September 2009]

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.