No one has posted about this classic film. I am indeed the first. Well... here's hoping other people have TCM, AMC, and Fox Movie Channel.
shareWell I saw it last night on VHS and I liked it.
Wishing I could have seen more of Dorothy and Harry
and I was so hoping they could have been an item.
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It's the first and only movie so far that I have seen Dorothy Dandridge in. It's alright, I like the story between her and the officer, the first interracial romance on-screen. Too bad they never kissed because it wasn't allowed then in movies.
"I promise you, before I die I'll surely come to your doorstep"
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The year after "Island in the Sun" Dorothy Dandridge starred in a film called "The Decks Ran Red", about a gang trying to take over a freighter to steal its cargo. In that film, Dorothy actually did kiss a white man, Stuart Whitman (who played one of the gang), making this the first interracial kiss in American films. But the filmmakers still played it "safe" by making her character a Maori from New Zealand, the wife of the ship's cook. This was pretty ridiculous as everybody knew Miss Dandridge was African-American, but they felt it necessary to make her some sort of south sea island "exotic", which would be more racially acceptable to whites, especially since many films had depicted romances between white men and Pacific island native girls (who were usually played by white women in make-up anyway).
Still, for all that, it really was an interracial kiss, and nobody seemed to make much of it. To this day many people erroneously claim that she performed the first such screen kiss in "Island in the Sun", but all she and John Justin ever did was neck and hold each other cheek-to-cheek.
First interracial kiss. Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty with Movita (Tahitian) 1935.
True. An imprecise characterization. First black/white kiss, certainly in mainstream movies.
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According to IMdB Movita was born in Arizona in 1917 shortly after her parents entered the US from Mexico. She is Mexican American; not Tahitian.....Given the number of Latin male leads who worked in Hollywood from the beginning, to say nothing of actresses like Rita Hayward, there doesn't seem to have been much resistance to pairing south of the border actors in romantic roles with European WASP actors. It was never really thought of as interracial.
Joe the plumber is right.
A kiss between Latin women and white men in the movies, was widely accepted but racist whites they after all could pass with their straight hair and lighter complexions...Lupe Velez, Marguerita Canseco (Rita Hayworth) and the beautiful one, Dolores Del Rio.
shareNo one has posted about this classic film.
That's true, but I like those too. However, I do have sense enough and enough inteliigence to appreciate all respective genres within the confines of their value as entertainment.
This movie should be recognized, not only as a classic, but as a part of movie and American History. It's director was blacklisted during the McCarthy red-hunts of the 1950's. This movie was a true labor of love for him. It's too bad every film could not be that way.
This movie should be recognized, not only as a classic, but as a part of movie and American History.Hear hear, Emia.
I guess,since IMDb was launched on October 17, 1990, and "Island in the Sun" was launched in 1957, hummmm! I assume the old folks don't spend much time on imdb,do they?! Many don't even know about imdb at all.
shareHey, FaintingFan, I launched in 1959 and I have been coming to this site for years! Who you called "old"??!! : >
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i LOVE old threads.
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Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her Daddy in the bathtub.