Carmen Jones (1954) User Reviews

Her Delilah Routine

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 28 August 2005]

Even after the success of Oklahoma, the partnership of Rodgers&Hammerstein was not cast in stone yet. After Oklahoma debuted, Oscar Hammerstein, II went to work on his next Broadway show with a dead collaborator. He wrote new lyrics for the music of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen and wrote a new book for an all black cast to perform it, in the tradition of Porgy and Bess.

That show was Carmen Jones and it ran for 502 performances on Broadway from 1943 to 1945. Hammerstein discovered what the team of Robert Wright and Chet Forrest had previously found out in adapting Edvard Grieg's melodies into their hit, Strange Music. That there's nothing like writing with a collaborator who can't complain and who's melodies are already a hit.

In fact while the show was originally on Broadway, Rise Stevens had sung in Going My Way the song that eventually became Dat's Love. And Nelson Eddy and sung The Toreador Song in his film Balalaika. Hammerstein brilliantly capitalized on some free publicity for his own show.

Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge give great acting performances though it's kind of strange to hear other voices coming from the mouths of two good singers. Their voices weren't operatic though, yet the singers dubbing them matched well with the personalities of both the leads. And Dandridge had Marilyn Horne, you can't do much better than that.

The whole thing originates from the French novelist's Prosper Merimee's story of the ill effects of passionate love. Harry Belefonte's on his way to being a Tuskegee airman and he runs afoul of Carmen Jones. Belefonte's got himself a gal, but Dandridge puts on her Delilah routine and Belefonte's dead meat.

In addition to Samson and Delilah the Belefonte character is remarkably similar to George Hurstwood in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Another man who threw it all away for passion. I wouldn't be surprised if Dreiser refined Merimee's theme.

But Dandridge's performance is the best. As the hedonistic Carmen Jones, she's a wonder on screen. Seeing her realize that part on the screen, we can well understand why Belefonte threw it all away for love. Dandridge became the first black woman nominated in the Best Actress category, but she lost the Oscar sweepstakes to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl.

For those who like the opera Carmen, I think they'll be well pleased with Oscar Hammerstein, II did with Bizet's music and Merimee's story.

A powerful display of Dandrige's appeal...

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 8/10 · 1 August 2008]

Dorothy Dandrige's roles went beyond that of sex symbol to being a parody of female sexuality… Carmen Jones is a powerful display of her appeal…

Based on Bizet's operatic masterpiece, Otto Preminger's film is the story of a GI about to go to flying school (Harry Belafonte), a noble young man who loves the cigarette-maker Carmen very dearly…

Filled with passionate songs and a first-rate supporting cast, the movie is filled with exciting musical numbers that are necessary to the film… But as impeccable and skillful the supporting cast is, this is Dandrige's magnetic star of enduring international appeal… Her Carmen is a flame of fire, isolating in a few moments the essence of her attraction… Her enigma sustained throughout a career notable for its startling changes of tempo and direction…Her shapely figure, blazing eyes, with the air of the unexpected add up a touch of melancholy to even the most routine sequences… Her performance was a parable of love and its power to destroy if misused

Dorothy Dandridge's best film

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 4 January 2006]

It's incredible that it took an Austrian director, Otto Preminger, the courage to bring this wonderful screen adaptation of the Bizet's immortal opera Carmen to the American public. As a musical, "Carmen Jones" had been seen, successfully, on Broadway, because of the many talented black performers that weren't allowed to be seen in Hollywood movies. Preminger had a knack for tackling issues that other, better known directors, stayed away from.

"Carmen Jones", as seen today, shows us a film that is somehow dated, but when it made its debut, it surprised a lot of people because it was a revolutionary work, something the American movie goers weren't used to seeing. The strength of the film lies in the performances Mr. Preminger got from his multi-talented cast.

The adaptation of the opera sets the film in the South. We are taken to a military base during the war. The local people work in the factory, attached to the base, making parachutes and other war related equipment. Carmen Jones, is the sultry young woman who sticks out from the rest of her co-workers, not only by her beauty, which was obvious, but by the way she can reduce men to servitude, which is what happens to Joe, the man who is being promoted until fate intervenes and Carmen renders him useless.

The gorgeous Dorothy Dandridge made a magnificent Carmen Jones. In fact, this was Ms. Dandridge's best screen work because she smolders the screen every time she is seen in the film. Harry Belafonte is Joe, the man whose passion for the lovely Carmen will consume him and will not let him see straight. Pearl Bailey is a delight in her take of Frankie. Olga James is seen as the sweet Cindy Lou, the girl in love with Joe. Joe Adams, Brock Peters and a young Diahann Carroll are also seen in minor roles.

Some comments to the IMDb forum express their displeasure at the way the voices are heard. This seems to have been the only thing that Preminger should have worked with his collaborators Oscar Hammerstein II and Harry Kleiner into having the opera melodies sung naturally, the way one would expect Ms. Dandridge, who could sing, and of course, Harry Belafonte, a wonderful singer, to deliver them in a way that would have pleased those audiences not accustomed to hearing classical opera.

Regardless of what we think today, this was one of the breakthroughs that proved to America they could enjoy black performers on their merits and talent. Otto Preminger must be praised for being a pioneer in this field and for daring to be a man ahead of his time.

Nice try, Otto...

[marcslope · 22 May 2000]

Preminger filmed this very quickly -- 17 days, I'm told -- in real or real-looking locations in the South, in widescreen. He cast top African-American talent and dubbed most of the cast, even those who could sing, to heighten the operatic effect.

Dandridge and Belafonte must be one of the most spectacularly beautiful couples in all the movies, and they play out the juicy old melodramatic plot for all it's worth (though his lack of acting training shows). The Hammerstein lyrics are mostly brilliant, and the original Merimee story is cleverly transplanted to a different time and place. The film's main trouble is its inconsistency of style -- it lurches from melodrama to comedy to musical comedy to opera, sometimes within a couple of scenes. The acting styles go from natural to hyper depending on what kind of scene is being played, so nothing really hangs together. In the better musicals, the moment where dialogue turns into song is subtly handled, so you're not really aware of the transition from realism to fantasy, but here there are huge bumps from one style to the next.

Still, it's good over-the-top entertainment, and, as noted elsewhere, a respite from the underuse and mishandling of African-American talent on the screen. And it is, for its time, low on condescension and stereotypes.

Dandridge, the photography, and the intention are all amazing enough to justify the rest

[secondtake · 7/10 · 18 September 2012]

Carmen (1954)

First of all, this is a gorgeous movie. The WWII-era sets, the fluid photography with a lot of long takes, the lighting and costumes and overall feel are elegant and un-compromised, first frame to last.

Second, the idea is fabulous, an all-Black cast and an African-American adaptation of the classic Carmen opera (by the French composure Bizet). The vernacular and the stereotypes might seem worn, or even insulting if you take them wrong (or just take them out of context) but in fact it's in line with that even better, earlier opera, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. The stereotypes are ones that made sanitized sense equally to White and Black America just as other musicals made sanitized sense to the same audiences. If I sound like an apologist, I'm only responding to attacks on the film ("farcical" "gruesome" or "dreadful"), as being untrue or insensitive to Blacks, by saying that nearly all musicals are incredibly stylized and false, and nearly all movies of this era played with safe, simplified versions of life.

No, to be fair to this really interesting movie you need to treat it like you would your own favorite movies from the 1950s, accepting the limitations just as the movie makers did. It's got its own syntax and style, it's own inner set of rules.

And within those the performance of the character Carmen by Dorothy Dandridge is incredible. She's on fire, introspective, nuanced, and outrageous. The cast around her is excellent but inevitably uneven, and she stands easily above them in pure performance energy, even over the other big star, Harry Belafonte.

All of this said, the beautiful, finely made, early widescreen movie here, "Carmen Jones," is lacking some kind of necessary intensity to work. I can't pin down why. From little strains of Bizet that perk it up (like a boxing worker whistling the most famous theme as he works) to the truly perfect photography and editing (maybe too perfect?), the movie has a steady, compelling flow. It's based on a Broadway musical from 1943 (the year the movie is set, as well), and it has the bones of a great drama, if a familiar one (it's still Bizet).

What might be the biggest problem is the understandable decision to film it in a realistic way, with song (and minimal dance) numbers inserted relatively seamlessly along the way. This is the standard musical approach from from the early Astaire-Rogers films to the relatively contemporaneous Arthur Freed productions of the early 1950s like "Singin' in the Rain." But Carmen, the opera and stage musical, is not a lighthearted romantic comedy. It isn't just escapist entertainment. And the gravitas and drama in it, at the end in particular, doesn't quite work the way it does on the opera stage. You watch Belafonte and Dandridge acting their hearts out, but it has that perfect 1950s movie-making production to remind us that it's a movie, and we are detached in a far different way than watching a stage version, with real people and false settings.

But never mind all that--you'll see for yourself how absorbed you get and why not more so.

A couple last things. First, the singing voices of the two leads are dubbed (yes!), surprising in Belafonte's case in particular because he was (and is) an accomplished singer. Second, Dandridge and director Preminger were having a longterm affair during the filming and after, and she pulls off what might be the best performance of her life here. Third, the movie was shown to the head of the NAACP before release to check on any problems that might be seen from an African-American point of view (this is 1954, remember) and no objections were raised. By this point, Preminger had been working with an all Black cast and was in close quarters with the leading lady so he must have had some sense that what he was after was on target for the time.

Watch it if you have interest in any of these things--WWII civilian life, Dandridge or Belafonte, opera adaptations into movies, early big budget African-American movies, Preminger movies, or terrific early Cinemascope photography. That should cover a lot of viewers, but not all. For me, I liked it a lot, and liked parts of it enormously (like the short clip of Max Roach drumming away on a barroom stage). But I felt slightly restless too often to get totally absorbed. One last suggestion--see it on the biggest screen you can, so it will be immersive.

Cant believe it took me so long

[Dfredsparks · 7/10 · 23 November 2004]

to see this amazing film. I thought Halle Berry did a great job in the Dandridge biopic, but after seeing Carmen Jones I don't know if she could do Dorothy justice. This woman was amazing in this film. she RADIATED sex appeal and I could see why her performance was groundbreaking. Otto Preminger directed and shot a beautiful film, and contemporary actors, especially black actors, should set the performances in this movie as highwater marks to shoot for. Pearl Bailey was amazing in addition to the two leads, Belafonte and Dandridge. Joe Adams as the boxer and the woman who played Cindy Lou also gave great performance.

Again to see black actors in this time period given a chance to perform a full range of characters was really amazing. In a lot of ways this film is more progressive than the drivel of black genre films coming out of Hollywood today

Dandridge and Bizet!

[paleolith · 8/10 · 10 January 2005]

Some greatness here. Dandridge's performance is riveting, and Pearl Bailey is a wonderful addition. Bizet's music is as appealing as always. The singers are excellent. The dancers at Billy Pastor's are another high point.

Too many slips for me to rate it a 10. It's lip-synced -- like every other movie musical, and (despite what one other reviewer said), one of the best lip-sync jobs I've seen. Only My Fair Lady does better (of those I've seen). Dandridge, Belafonte, and Bailey are particularly good; Olga James much less so. But I always find lip-syncing painfully obvious and distracting and will probably never have a chance to top-rate a movie musical as a result. It's also quite distracting when Joe breaks into song, because LeVern Hutcherson's voice is so different from Harry Belafonte's. It's a real shame that experienced singers like Dandridge and Belafonte weren't allowed to sing. Marilyn Horne, wow -- but I like the voice to match the face.

The acting is uneven. Some is excellent, led by Dandridge, and others do well too. But some of the acting is stiff.

Then there's the re-setting. Oh, moving the place is fine. It's funny that a couple of reviewers have referred to "how the Spaniards do it" and "Spanish opera". Hey, Carmen is set in Seville and Bizet attempted to use some Spanish musical idioms, but Carmen is a French opera through and through. Bizet was French, Prosper Merimee was French, the libretto is in French. But Carmen Jones only uses the top arias from Carmen, and ends up adding a lot of dialog to fill in the time. The story is true to the original, but Bizet told more in music and Hammerstein tells more in words. Oscar should have trusted Georges more.

I notice that Alvin Ailey is uncredited as a dancer. I found a couple of photos of him on the web -- it's hard, because his dance company has been so much more famous than the man, but I found a couple. I *think* I figured out which one he is -- some slo-mo work there -- but most of the dancers' faces don't come into focus for long enough to know for sure. It would be mostly a curiosity to know, since the movie doesn't show enough of the dance to see any personal style.

It's not for everyone's taste....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 13 March 2017]

This is the story of a soldier, Joe (Harry Belafonte) and a fiery lady, Carmen (Dorothy Dandridge) and their unlikely relationship which begins with Joe trying to transport Carmen to the brig...and ends up with the pair falling in love.

If you are looking to see a classic opera translated into more modern times and with entirely new lyrics, then "Carmen Jones" is definitely for you. However, regardless of its all-black cast, this is clearly a film that is for very select folks! You hate opera well then the film will be a tough sell! As for me, I would have enjoyed the music OR the story. The total package didn't hold my interest. But this does NOT mean the film is bad or poorly made...it's not. It's all a matter of personal taste.

One of the classics of African-American cinema

[mctheimer · 9/10 · 2 April 2000]

This film shows just how much talent existed and was mostly unused because of the small number of pictures made with African-American casts during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

It's a remake of Bizet's "Carmen", and was originally performed on Broadway in the 1940's. Otto Preminger filmed the play during the 1950's. The songs all retain Bizet's original music, but the lyrics have been updated to English. If you've never seen the opera, and are intimidated by opera in general, this film would actually be a good introduction to the topic.

The plot is moved from a Spanish village during the late 1800's to the American South during WWII. The cigarette factory is now a parachute factory, and the bullfighter is now a prize fighter. Generally, I thought the update was done well, just as some Shakespearean updates work well. The only part which doesn't work for me is that some of the dialogue and lyrics are in what I think of as "Porgy and Bess Ebonics", e.g. "dees", "dem", "dat", etc.

Carmen is played by Dorothy Dandridge, who is known as the African-American Marilyn Monroe. The two women's lives sadly parallel each other, although Dandridge could find even fewer scripts to show off her acting talents. Harry Belafonte plays the seduced male lead. Both are stunning beautiful, and at their prime.

All of the singing voices are dubbed by first rank operatic voices; the songs for Carmen Jones are dubbed by Marilyn Horne, for example.

The tragedy is realizing how many great actors and actresses could have had brilliant careers except for their skin color. It was interesting and sad to watch the Movietone Newsreel coverage of the premiere, which came attached to the copy of the tape I had. It features all of the white movie stars attending the premiere, the white studio heads -- and just happens to have a second or two of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge at the end.

A fascinating experiment

[JackLind · 7/10 · 30 August 2004]

I believe the other reviewer misses the point. This film was a fascinating experiment in restaging and updating an opera "warhorse." Imagine a Hollywood studio trying to do something like this today? Unthinkable.

The basic story line is classic - man, woman, betrayal, death. I find the musical renderings of Bizet's tunes most interesting. (Dmitri Tiomkin was one of the musical directors (uncredited).) The original lyrics aren't all that interesting, so re-writing the words doesn't seem to me of much consequence. I could wish, however, that the singing and acting were better. (Except for Carmen -- Marilyn Horne!!)

The race thing doesn't trouble me at all. The original 'Carmen' was set in the Seville underclass, so this transformation to America of the 1920s made perfect sense. And it gave a lot of black actors a good gig!

Opera stage directors and designers often set operas in modern times. Shakespeare's plays are often reset into modern times. Remember Ethan Hawkes' "Hamlet?" We should encourage these revitalization attempts. After all, they are, in a very real sense, truly creative works.

Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but films like 'Carmen Jones' exemplify a vital history of 'Americanizing' the sometimes stale European 'high art' ideal into more readily digestible fare. This maybe isn't the greatest movie ever made, but c'mon! Give Hollywood a break. They were trying to DO something, so let's give some credit for a good attempt.

What a Dull Slog

[evanston_dad · 3/10 · 14 August 2020]

Otto Preminger proves that he has not a clue how to direct a musical in this dull slog adapted from the famous opera.

It's a shame too, because he has Dorothy Dandridge in the title role. She's a vivacious presence, but Preminger doesn't know what to do with her except film her in static medium long shots. This is one of those early Cinemascope productions where the aspect ratio is wide but the director doesn't use the extra space for anything interesting. So most of the time we watch two actors standing still in the middle of the frame while the sides are filled with empty sets.

The film comes alive only a couple of times, when we hear those famous Bizet songs. But the credit for that goes to the original opera, not to anyone in the movie. In fact, the film does its best to undermine the music by dubbing both Dandridge and Harry Belafonte with different singers. This hurts Belafonte the most -- he's asked to lip sync to a dreadful, high-pitched voice that doesn't for a second sound like it's actually coming from him.

This movie has no plot and no character development. That's true of a lot of musicals, but they make up for it with verve, dance, and color. This movie doesn't do that, and the whole thing sits on the screen like a lump of lead.

"Carmen Jones" received two Oscar nominations, one for Dandridge as Best Actress, the first time a black actor was nominated in a lead category, and the other for Best Musical Scoring.

Grade: D

Bizet's tragic and passionate opera is updated and still maintains the opera's passion, thanks to the wonderful music and a sexy Dorothy Dandridge

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 9 February 2010]

You may guess that I love Bizet's opera Carmen, it is somewhat tragic but very passionate. While updated, this film directed wonderfully by the talented Otto Preminger is a wonderful contemporary version of the opera, still maintaining Bizet's wonderful music and inspired lyrics from Oscar Hammerstein II. Whether it is the definitive film version of the opera I am not sure, I absolutely adore the 1984 film with Placido Domingo and Julia Mignes-Johnson. That aside, this film is really handsomely shot, with beautiful crisp cinematography and stunning scenery. And of course the music is outstanding "Dat's Love", "Dis Flower", "Stan' Up an' Fight" and "Dere's a Cafe on de Corner" really do stand out. The story is a beautiful, tragic, compelling one, not at all confusing. And the performances are marvellous, Dorothy Dandridge is superb as Carmen Jones. She is gorgeous, flirtatious and sexy, everything Carmen in the opera should be. Harry Belafonte does a great job as Joe, the man consumed for the passion of Carmen, so much so he is driven to murder. Olga James is heart breaking as Cindy-Lou, Pearl Bailey is a delightful Frankie, Joe Adams is a great Husky Miller and Brock Peters is effective as Sergeant Brown. I have heard complaints that the singing was awful, and I disagree completely. Marilyn Horne has a beautiful singing voice and she did well as Carmen. She has been better though, she has a much stronger voice than what was heard here. And LeeVern Hutcherson has a lovely tenor voice, quite lightweight and sensitive when it needs to be. And Marvin Hayes has a very resonant voice that is needed for his character. If the singing was a little quiet at times, do bear in mind sound and technology wasn't as good then than it is now. My real complaint was that the lip-synching was a little behind the singing at times, but other than that, this is a great film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A ground-breaking Carmen

[psjill · 7/10 · 18 April 2004]

I grew up listening to the soundtrack of Carmen Jones as the film (and, in particular, Dorothy Dandridge!) were among my Dad's favourites. Now whenever I hear the Toreador's Song I break into Stand Up and Fight!

Although it is many years since I last saw this movie, it is on my "must have" list based on the wonderful musical score, the charismatic leads, and its importance as a vehicle for Black American talent at a time when racial discrimination was rife. Halle Berry's Oscar acceptance speech for Best Actress in Monster's Ball reminded me of just how far we have come and how long it has taken to reach this stage of the journey!

If you haven't yet seen Carmen Jones - take the time to view this milestone in American cinema history - you won't be disappointed.

"Heatwave" is going to start the second Chicago fire!

[cgvsluis · 5/10 · 7 March 2022]

A contemporary adaptation of...well I want to say of a musical or an opera of a book. I was thrilled to hear that they kept Bizet's music. It was fun to even just have it hummed by Carmen as she is putting on her finery to go meet another man.

This all African American cast tells the story of a soldier played by Harry Belafonte who has recently been granted a spot in flight school. He gets a visit from his sweet and innocent home town sweetheart who he decides to marry that very day. Before they can tie the knot he is roped in to taking a civilian Carmen, who is working in there parachute department, to jail one town away because the military can't jail a civilian. Carmen who has been trying to get into Belafonte's pants this whole time takes full advantage of their private time...to take full advantage.

"Hip chick acting like a dumb cluck."

Once they are together it is like the downfall of Belafonte and his career. He goes to military jail for not following orders...and just when he gets his spot in flight school again, Carmen talks him into going AWOL to Chicago where she leaves him for a boxer.

This is a sad brake down of one man thanks to a bad woman. Carmen played by Dorothy Dandrige (who does a phenomenal job) seems to have no shame.

I actually thought the scene stealer of this film was Pearl Bailey...she was gorgeous with her deep voice and dolled up with rhinestones.

This is a classic and wonderful to see at least once. There are definitely better interpretations of Carmen out there, but this was a well done film adaption.

Memorable Melodrama With A Standout Performance By Dorothy Dandridge

[Snow Leopard · 23 February 2005]

This memorable melodrama is an interesting adaptation of the classic "Carmen" story and music with a new setting and new song lyrics. Most of it works quite well, but it is remembered most of all for Dorothy Dandridge's impressive performance as "Carmen Jones".

The basic Carmen story itself is a perceptive and tragic look at the elemental passions and emotions that drive so much of what happens in human relationships. For the story to work most effectively, it takes a Carmen who not only has plenty of energy, but who also can be convincing in dominating all of the other characters. Dandridge excels at both, and she makes it easy to believe that she could get practically anything that she wanted from anyone.

Except for Pearl Bailey, who makes her character lively and entertaining in her own right, most of the rest of the cast is solid but is clearly - as is no doubt meant to be the case - overshadowed by Dandridge and Carmen. One exception, though, is Olga James as Cindy Lou. Although her character is very meek, and has no chance against Carmen, James does a fine job of making her sympathetic without becoming overly weepy or maudlin, and her performance adds some additional depth to the drama of relationships.

Most of the musical numbers work well, and there is good variety in them, as there is also in the settings and the material. The climactic sequence in the arena is nicely crafted, with the prizefight taking place in full view while, hidden from sight, the characters' passions are reaching the boiling point. It caps off an effective and interesting movie.

You're hot for me and I'm taboo, but if you're hard to get I'm all for you...

[ElMaruecan82 · 7/10 · 18 April 2019]

"Carmen Jones" is a milestone for African-American cinema and that will cover most of the review so let's start by giving Otto Preminger the credit he deserved to have trusted his instinct and served a wonderful platform to Black talents such as Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Olga James or Pearl Bailey. And let's not forget Saul Bass who designed the rose in the middle of an incandescent red flame, growing and growing under the tempo of "Carmen"'s overture.

Just like the opening credits sequence, some moments are nothing short of brilliant in a precociously modern way. However, other elements are so naively conceived and lacking in inspiration that it prevents the film to reach the same heights than many acclaimed classics. It doesn't do to "Carmen" (Prosper Merimee's story and George Bizet's opera) what "West Side Story" did for "Romeo and Juliet", but the intentions were there, and the Cinemascope musical did a lot for the African-American cinematic presence in the early 1950s.

And there are two things to which "Carmen Jones" owes a great deal of its impact: the iconic music of Bizet's opera and the sex-appeal of Dorothy Dandridge who doesn't even need any music to inflame the screen, her sole presence does the job. Whether dressed in that tight bohemian-like dress or that slinky pink outfit, the woman with the rose, a wild rose herself, is the kind of screen-presence that only a heart made of stone would resist. Dandridge's performance as the titular Carmen will make history as the first to earn a Black performer a nomination for Best Actress, competing with Audrey Hepburn and Judy Garland for the golden statuette but ultimately losing for Grace Kelly in "The Country Girl".

But Carmen Jones isn't your average "country girl", as the hedonistic and sultry vixen, she's a winner per essence, a woman who knows how her charm operates and never misses an opportunity to seduce the eyes and catch a resisting heart. As she sings along with the Habanera music "you go for me and I'm taboo but if you're hard to get I'm all for you", we would almost miss the warning if it wasn't for the catchy melody. The voice doesn't belong to her but to Marilyn Horne. I guess it was too much asking to get the voice and the acting in the same body, but Dandridge exudes such vivid sensuality that it suspends our disbelief and we carry on, following the growing romance with Joe, the naïve Corporal who abandons his doll-faced but prude fiancée (Olga James) for the more volcanic beauty.

It doesn't take too long for the romance to take off, interestingly, it's caused by the imprisonment of Carmen for a fight with a co-worker, and even in the realm of violence, there's something fascinatingly torrid and wild in Carmen's body language, making the film unusually sensual by the standards of the fifties. Look at the scene where Carmen literally slides her head between Joe's legs to firmly clean his pants from mud and how this builds up to the great moment where she threw the peach he was eating and put his arm around her hips, as to say "kiss me you big fool" and finally, the epitome of eroticism is reached where she gives her feet to him and he kisses them, subverting the balance of power, becoming the slave of her love.

I can't recall a more sexually loaded picture of the same era except for "A Streetcar Named Desire" but one should wonder whether the Code would have left these scenes uncensored if they were featuring White actors. This is not to review the film under the prism of racial considerations but only to say that there are many timely aspects that date it in a subtler way. Yes it's impossible to overlook what makes the film such a milestone as a Black movie musical... but sometimes, you almost feel a sort of outsider fascination, from director Otto Preminger who adapted the Broadway musical. Sometimes the film gets too intense for its own good and the 'dramatic' moments, which Preminger intended to film as narrative highlights strike for their savorless and condescending superficiality.

It results in an uneven production where great singing moments such as Olga James who plays the poor fiancée and Pearl Bailey, who as Carmen's friend, Frankie steals the show with her unforgettable "Rhythm of a Drum", a spontaneous and not too fancy act that lets the real creativity implode and makes you almost regret the film's insistence to recreate the opera. The boxer who supposedly replaces the toreador is a rather forgettable rival to Joe, who isn't even given much substance especially during the second half of the film. Belafonte is never given a true chance to shine as much as Dandridge and his emotional moments are inevitably ruined by the operatic voice of LeVern Hutcherson, which seems to belong to a a different universe than the one we've been immersed to.

Some scene becomes pathetic but in a sort of a laughable way that shows the limit of an opera modernization when it comes to a contemporary setting. And the awkwardness is enhanced by the fact that there aren't the real singers' voices. Now all these considerations apart, how the film stand as a musical or as entertainment? I think there's something that makes the film a standalone classic, the way it defies many conventions of the musical and the romance genres and even dares to challenge the narrative requirements by not hinting anything condemnable in Carmen's behavior. She's a selfish person, to which it's hard to empathize with, but the film was directed with enough guts to let her be so till the end. She was a natural and strayed loyal to her own personal appetites despite the tragedy pending over her.

"Carmen Jones" was a true anti-heroine, and certainly a decade-defining and culturally significant character, which is enough to redeem the musical.

Enjoyed watching it and that's what counts the most.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 21 February 2010]

I have seen my fair share of musical movies and even though it's not my favorite genre I can say with certainty that I still really enjoyed watching this movie and is therefore among the more entertaining ones that I have ever seen.

Not only is this movie a modern take on the novel and opera 'Carmen' but it also is one that has a completely Afro-American cast. This gives the story a whole new different attitude and it brings certainly live to the whole movie and story.

It's an 1954 movie but let me tell you that the movie feels a lot more modern than that. If you would had told me that this movie was from 1974 I would had certainly believed it. It's not just because of the approach that the movie feels way more modern but also really because of its fine visual looks.

As far as the musics goes, an important aspect within a musical movie of course, I also must say that I quite liked it, even though it was certainly weird seeing how basically every singing bit of the movie got dubbed by an obviously totally different person, that sounds really nothing like the actor who is playing the character.

In this movie you could had real easily hated the Carmen character, fore she is one that is a real tease with men, steals boyfriends from other women and every now and then applies some manipulation, with her sexual and sensual powers. Yet you far from hate her, for which most credit really needs to go to the actress portraying her, Dorothy Dandridge, who also even received an Oscar nomination for her role in this movie.

But at the same time there also is not really anything that makes this movie stand out as a truly excellent one. It's production values obviously weren't too high and the movie feels a bit static and simplistic at times. Nevertheless, I simply enjoyed watching this movie and that is what counts the most.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Dorothy Dandridge as Carmen

[MulattaAries2007 · 10/10 · 29 May 2007]

I find Dandridge's performance wonderful. She took the screen away and presented Carmen Jones to a T. If it wasn't for her performance, the bar wouldn't have been set for the 1st Black woman nominated for an Academy Award as best actress. That's history and was made by a robust woman. Dorothy Dandridge did an extraordinary job and reached a whole new height that no other African American had went before. She convinced me that she was in fact the tempetuous femme fetale, Carmen Jones. I've noticed that some are racist and think that a black cast should not have been made and to leave it to the Spainards, well here is a news flash, there is always someone bigger and badder, that can do it better.

The real Dorothy Dandrige

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 4 May 2008]

I had two reasons for wanting to see this film. Ever since I saw Halle Berry in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, I was impressed by how similar they looked. The first African American woman to win a best Actress Oscar plays the first African American to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. This was her best film. The other reason I wanted to see this film was the fact that I love Carmen. Of course, the one I love is the 1984 version with Julia Migenes and Placido Domingo, but any version is worth watching.

What is really good about this film, outside of seeing Dorothy Dandridge at the top of her game, is the change to see other great African-American stars in their prime: Emmy-winning singer Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Olga James in her first film, and Diahann Carroll (Claudine, "Julia"). it would have been nice to hear Dandridge and Belafonte sing, but Carmen was just too much for their voices.

It is a piece of film history and I do not regret that I had to stay up til 5:15 am to see it.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Use'ta

[alil2young · 10/10 · 10 December 1999]

In school I heard of Natalie Wood but not Dorothy Dandrige. I heard of James Dean, but not really Sidney Portier. So how nice it is to see such a film on my own to know that it existed and is as worthy of favorable acclaim as the rest.

I saw this on A&E and was blown away! I am so disappointed to not see films of this caliber nor actors getting work to really challenge their skills like these actors did. This all star cast was superb and intense. They sweat, they cried, they had veins sticking out of their heads literally...so into their roles. The opera singing is something I don't think will be seen in black cinema today. If so, it'll probably be ostracized. "Carmen Jones" represents the missing link in black films today, the true element of quality, character and story.

I MUST buy this and have it for other to see, even if it is 15 years later!

Lil

Classic musical with all-African-American cast excitingly performed and competently directed

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 16 March 2021]

Vintage African-American musical with wonderful songs , marvellous dances and good cast with reputable singers . The story is well known , though this time replacing characters as a deserter soldier , a boxer and the cigarette-maker with a rose instead of a fag between her teeth is transformed into a parachute factory worker . As the romance with GI Joe is interrupted by Harlem's equivalent of the toreador , a boxer .Being freely based on Prosper Merinee's fine old tale of high passion and low morals.

It is filled with music , dances , ringing tunes and emotive power , being an Oscar Hammerstein's all-black Broadway rendition of Bizet's Carmen , including fine actors, such as the good-looking Harry Belafonte , the sexy dynamic Dorothy Dandridge and supported by Pearl Bailey who enjoys her coolest movie hour . It seems to be a shame that Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge , both notorious singers , were not allowed to use their own voces, but their acting are alright on the ball . Outstanding some attractive songs , such as : Stand up and fight until you hear the Bell, and That's love, originally Habanera , along with the lushly familiar score with catching voices from Marilyn Horne and Laverne Hutchinson .

The picture was well staged and compellingly directed by Otto Preminger who got a triumphant filmmaking . However , somewhat heavy-handed direction leave you admiring the workmanship with no plucking at the necessary emotional and romantic heart-strings . Otto Preminger was a prestigious actor and filmmaker directing good films in alll kinds of genres , such as : Moon is Blue , Man with the Golden Arm, Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, Saint Joan, Advise and consent , Anatomy of a murder , The Cardinal, Exodus , Rosebud , among others . Rating : 6.5/10 . Decent movie with spectacular musical numbers . The picture will appeal to musical genre aficionados as well as Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge fans .

Boring and Overrated

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 1 December 2011]

The Corporal Joe (Harry Belafonte) is engaged to the countryside girl Cindy Lou (Olga James) and is ready to go to the pilot school. However, he is assigned to transport the troublemaker Carmen Jones (Dorothy Dandridge), an easy independent and arrogant woman desired by every man that works in a parachute factory, to be arrested in another town. Joe has one night stand with the easy Carmen and she escapes from him. The infatuated Joe is arrested and can not forget Carmen. When he is released, his commander sends him to the pilot school; however, he meets Carmen and he hits a sergeant that is flirting with her. Joe flees from the Military Police with Carmen and they head to Chicago. But sooner Carmen finds a new lover, the box fighter Husky Miller (Joe Adams) and leaves Joe that is chased by the MP.

"Carmen Jones" is a boring and overrated film by Otto Preminger that uses the music of Bizet's opera. The whole cast is Afro-American and I did not like this movie. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Carmen Jones"

The Oscar Hammerstein Carmen

[FloatingOpera7 · 10/10 · 31 July 2006]

Carmen Jones (1954): Starring Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Joe Adams, Olga James, Pearl Bailey, Nick Stewart, Roy Glenn, Diahann Carroll, Brock Peters, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Sandy Lewis. With the singing voices of Marilyn Horne, LeVerne Hutcherson, Marvin Hayes, Bernice Peterson, Margaret Lancaster....Director Otto Preminger, Lyrics By Oscar Hammerstein II, Screenplay Harry Kleiner.

From 1954, director Otto Preminger and Broadway musical composer Oscar Hammerstein teamed up for "Carmen Jones", a musical version of the well-known and popular opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. For its time, this film was revolutionary and innovative. Musicals were primarily a vehicle for well-known Caucausian singing-actors: Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, Mary Martin and others. The cast for this film is all-black, and the principal roles are portrayed by well-known African-American actors of their day- Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. Although an all-black Broadway musical was not new at this time (George Gerswhin's "Porgy and Bess" had already appeared on Broadway and in the 40's all-black musical films like "The Green Pastures" and "Cabin In The Sky" preceded this film), Carmen Jones was still very unique and an important film for the black community, for it meant that better roles were finally given to black actors. The movie was made in colorful Cinemascope, which was quite new at the time, filmed (thank God) outdoors and not in a studio, giving the film a realistic quality rather than a "painted backdrop" feeling which you would otherwise get in a musical or opera for that matter. Although the Bizet opera version is not what you see here, much of the original plot, themes and characters from the opera remain intact. There's a Carmen, Don Jose and Micaela, except with different, more realistic names and attitudes. The setting has been changed from the typically romanticized 19th century Spain composed of free-spirited gypsies, bullfighters, passionate romance and soldiers to America sometime after World War II (possibly the Korean War period)definitely the 50's. Carmen's opening number "Habanera", in which a red-clad Carmen sings a seductive song about herself, is still as powerful and evocative as every Carmen production I've ever seen. Dorothy Dandrige had made several important films and her roles were like black Marilyn Monroe roles- sexy, smart and liberated. She was a sort of pre-feminist movement icon. Her love of freedom, sensuality and devil-may-care attitude serves her well for the part of Carmen, who lives to love men, leave them and move on to a better catch, living a life that is her own and doing exactly as she pleases. American Mezzo-soprano diva Marilyn Horne provides the singing voice for Carmen Jones. This was early in her opera career and it was a smart move, for many still remember her for her fine Carmen performances. Harry Belafonte as Joe, the soldier Carmen loves and later jilts delivers a man driven to torment and passion, a man transformed from a good, innocent, engaged man (he's engaged to Cindy Lou played by Olga James) to an obscessed and ultimately tragic figure. He is very realistic, in fact probably more so than other "Don Joses" who make him out to be some kind of psychotic soldier or overgrown boy. We feel for Joe's plight. We feel for Cindy Lou's plight. But Dorothy Dandridge is not complex enough for us to sympathize with her character. The film is probably at its best when there is no singing and we see the drama unfolding through dialog. But the words by Oscar Hammerstein are memorable, catchy and perfectly in-synch with the original music written for the Bizet opera, although it appears that Hammerstein composed variations and new music that seems to fit the Carmen music. This is a great film, despite the melodrama and the flat characters. Fans of Dorothy Dandridge, who lived a short life in the movies and who was, in her day, a serious black actress prior to the Civil Rights movement, will enjoy this film. This role is possibly her most famous and the one that earned her a great deal of fame.

A Bizet and Hammerstein Musical

[JamesHitchcock · 7/10 · 24 July 2009]

I am not really an opera buff, so I have not taken a lot of interest in films based upon operas; the few I have seen have not really convinced me that this is an art-form that transfers well to the cinema screen. "Carmen Jones" is different, largely because the opera on which it is based is different. Georges Bizet's "Carmen" was controversial when it was first produced in the 1870s, largely because it did not fit into either of the two then accepted categories of opera. Its spoken dialogue, working-class characters and merry tunes were more reminiscent of comic opera than of grand opera, but its plot, centred upon sexual passion, jealousy and murder, is far from comic. In some respects the work even in its original form is closer to a Broadway musical than it is to traditional ideas of opera, so it was not surprising when, in 1943, Oscar Hammerstein turned it into just that.

Hammerstein kept Bizet's music and the basic outlines of his plot but provided new lyrics and updated the story from nineteenth-century Spain to America in World War II. In this version Carmen works in a parachute factory, and her lover (named Joe rather than Jose) is a GI with ambitions to train as a pilot. Most of the main characters have similar names to those in the opera; Carmen's friends Frasquita and Mercedes become Frankie and Mert (presumably a diminutive of Myrtle), Lillas Pastia is Billy Pastor and the bullfighter Escamillo becomes (a rather strained one this) the boxer Husky Miller. The one exception is Micaela who should by rights have been Michelle but instead becomes Cindy-Lou.

The stage musical had one distinctive feature which is faithfully followed in the film; an all African-American cast. Although the film has far more actors than most stage productions would, there is not a single white face to be seen, not even as a minor character, not even as an extra in the crowd scenes. A times this can seem a bit unrealistic (are there really no white boxing fans in Chicago?) but the aim was presumably not realism but symbolism. In the 1950s Hollywood was still a very racist institution, with black actors generally limited to minor roles, often as servants or other working-class characters. Most films had all-white casts, even in situations where one might have expected to see some black faces. By making "Carmen Jones" with an all-black cast, the filmmakers were sending out a message, not only about the talents of black performers, but also about their unfair treatment within the film industry.

Since her tragic early death from an accidental overdose, Dorothy Dandridge has become known as the "black Marilyn Monroe", and her performance here shows her to have been just as beautiful and at least as talented as Marilyn herself. She received a nomination for a "Best Actress" Oscar, something Marilyn never achieved. (She was the first African-American actress so nominated). This should have been the part that made Dandridge's career, but in fact she had to wait three years for her next film role. I doubt if any white Oscar nominee would have had that problem. Harry Belafonte, her co-star here, also appears in that film, "Island in the Sun". Oddly enough, although Dandridge and Belafonte were as well-known for their singing as they were for their acting, their singing voices are both dubbed in "Carmen Jones". Perhaps they were considered to be not "operatic" enough for their roles.

Belafonte was not Oscar-nominated, but he is very good as Joe, making sympathetic a character who could easily have been seen simply as a self-destructive idiot. (Joe does, after all, sacrifice both his relationship with his loving sweetheart Cindy-Lou and a promising military career for the sake of a woman who eventually rejects him). Dandridge also has a difficult balancing act to perform, needing to make Carmen seductive and alluring but not so hard and amoral that she forfeits our sympathy altogether. (The film character is perhaps rather more sympathetic than her counterpart in the opera, a work that sometimes strikes me as being rather misogynistic in tone).

Like a number of fifties musicals, "Carmen Jones" can today seem somewhat dated. Apart from the sterling contributions of its two stars, however, it does have one great advantage in its music; for a story that ends tragically there are a surprisingly large number of light-hearted, cheerful melodies. Even though he had been dead for nearly seventy years, Hammerstein had found in Bizet a collaborator even more gifted than Richard Rodgers. 7/10

Lackluster

[kenjha · 5/10 · 2 March 2013]

The popular opera "Carmen," about the love affair between a soldier and a gypsy, is transported from 19th century Spain to 1940s U.S., with a black cast. Hammerstein provides the songs with English lyrics, but they fail to do justice to Bizet's magnificent music. Although Dandridge and Belanfonte could sing, their singing was dubbed as they could not carry operatic tunes. Dandridge looks beautiful in the title role, but her performance is weak. Belafonte does not fare too well either. It may not be the fault of the actors as much as the melodramatic and unengaging screenplay. Preminger, out of his element here, also deserves blame. The music should have carried the day, but the numbers are surprisingly lackluster.