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Bright Road
Fri, Nov 4 | 2pm | TMT
Dorothy Dandridge’s debut starring film role finds her portraying a novice schoolteacher in a sleepy rural town who bonds with a young boy struggling with his studies (Philip Hepburn in his sole film performance). Presiding over the school is principal Harry Belafonte, making his own cinematic debut. Adapted from an award-winning story by West Indies-raised writer Mary Elizabeth Vroman (the first Black woman to join the Screen Writers Guild thanks to this film adaptation), Bright Road is a bucolic, bittersweet coming-of-age film filled with song and heart.
DIRECTOR: Gerald Mayer.
WRITTEN BY: Emmet Lavery.
CAST: Dorothy Dandridge, Philip Hepburn, Harry Belafonte, Barbara Ann Sanders.
1953. 69 min. B&W. USA. HD-CAM.
The Jackie Robinson Story
Sun, Nov 6 | 2pm | TMT
In one of her earliest onscreen roles, Ruby Dee embodies the real-life figure of Rachel “Rae” Isum, who married pioneering baseball player Jackie Robinson just one year before he became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in 1947. Cast to portray himself in this filmed version of his life while simultaneously boasting his best year to date with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson exudes a calm, confident resolution onscreen, shared by Dee’s Rae as his endlessly supportive partner. In another stroke of realism, Dee was the exact same age as Rae during filming: both were born in 1922.
DIRECTOR: Alfred E. Green.
WRITTEN BY: Lawrence Taylor, Arthur Mann.
CAST: Jackie Robinson, Ruby Dee, Minor Watson, Louise Beavers.
1950. 77 min. USA. B&W. English. 35mm.
Print courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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