Carmen Jones

An army base during the Second World War. Carmen Jones works in the parachute shop, starts a fight and is arrested. The soldier taking her to the guardhouse is Joe; he has a fiancée and is going to flying school. On the road Carmen tries to escape and binds him to her. He gives everything up. They run to Chicago. The money goes, there is no work, and Joe is counted a deserter. Carmen's interest moves elsewhere; there is a boxer. Joe will not let her go. Otto Preminger directs. Dorothy Dandridge plays Carmen and Harry Belafonte plays Joe; Pearl Bailey and Olga James are in the cast. It is an American production, made in 1954. The source is Bizet's opera Carmen; the story was moved to America and Oscar Hammerstein wrote the libretto. The film was made with an entirely black cast, a rare production for its period. Dorothy Dandridge was nominated for the Oscar for best actress for the part, the first black woman to receive that nomination. Some of the singing was dubbed by opera voices; Dandridge and Belafonte did not sing their own numbers. The matter it treats is obsession; the narrative builds Carmen not as a villain but as someone living by her own rules. The ending is the same as the opera's and inevitable. Its limit is its outlook; the narrative makes types of its characters and the dubbing is contested today. Who it is for: viewers who like classic musicals and adaptations of opera. Who it is not for: it is old, the dubbing uncomfortable, and the ending bitter.