CARMEN JONES

Carmen Jones was adapted by director Otto Preminger from Oscar Hammerstein’s hit Broadway musical, which was itself based on George Bizet’s classic 19th century opera “Carmen”. Featuring an all-black cast, and shot in the then pioneering widescreen Scope format, it’s energetic and passionate. Dorothy Dandridge plays the alluring Florida factory worker Carmen, who seduces Joe, an upstanding soldier, with tragic consequences. Dorothy Dandridge gives an electrifying performance, which saw her become the first African-American to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. In a series of strikingly colorful outfits, she brings a sensual physicality to the role, bringing to mind that description of Jeanne Moreau’s Catherine in Jules et Jim, “she wasn’t a woman, she was a force of nature.” Belafonte too impresses in conveying how the initially level-headed Joe becomes morbidly jealous of the proudly defiant Carmen, who refuses to conform to society’s expectations of female behavior. (Tom Dawson)