PINKY

Jeanne Crain, William Lundigan

PINKY (1949). Director: Elia Kazan,

"Of course I'm in pain! Do you think I'll die in ease and ecstasy? -- Miss Em

You can't live without pride." -- Pinky

Patricia (Jeanne Crain of In the Meantime, Darling), who has been affectionately known as "Pinky" all of her life, looks like a white woman but is actually a "Negro." After being educated, getting a nursing degree, and becoming engaged to the white Dr. Adams (William Lundigan), she has returned home to see her grandmother, Dicey (Ethel Waters).

Ethel Barrymore as ailing Miss Em

Dicey is good friends with Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore), a once-wealthy woman who lives in a mansion not far from Dicey's much more humble dwelling. Pinky is resentful of Miss Em, and at first resists her grandmother's insistence that she temporarily become a nurse for the ailing old lady. But as the two women take measure of each other, they each earn the other one's respect. Pinky's fiancee shows up and learns the truth, and it all leads to a court battle over an estate that Pinky feels is rightfully hers. But will a "Negro" ever have the same rights accorded to a white person, and can Pinky and Dr. Adams have a real future together?

Ethel Waters, Frederick O'Neal, Crain

For 1949, Pinky was certainly ahead of its time. Although any other type of ending may well have been impossible given attitudes at the time toward interracial relationships, the movie takes a woman who tries to live as white and ultimately gives her true strength, pride and dignity. One could quibble about some aspects of the story and some of the negative if human black characters, but the fact that Pinky still manages to say what it does in the late forties is remarkable. There is also first-class cinematography from Joe MacDonald, and a nice score from Alfred Newman. And then there are the performances.

Ethel Waters and Ethel Barrymore were both nominated for a supporting actress Oscar and they deserved to be; they are both superb. Jeanne Crain was also nominated for Best Actress, but I found her performance to be uneven. She has some terrific moments, true, but in other sequences she just seems to be speaking lines with little true feeling behind them. Frederick O'Neal makes his mark as Jake, as does Nina Mae McKinney [Dark Waters] as his girlfriend, Rozelia. Evelyn Varden [Hilda Crane] is a stand-out as Melba, the nasty and racist cousin of Miss Em's, and there is notable work from Griff Barnett, Basil Ruysdael., and Kenny Washington in smaller but important roles. William Lundigan is fine in a thankless part that doesn't give him enough to do.

Pinky is a contrast to Band of Angels, which came out eight years later and also has a black heroine passing for white. Angels has an entirely different ending that is more "romantic" but also takes a giant step backwards when it comes to black pride.

Verdict: Superior drama with something to say. ***1/2.