There are many who regard 1939 as an amazing year for Hollywood filmmaking, with 'Gone With the Wind' of course cited as a part of that. What a contrast this film is, made just ten years later in 1949. GWTW had incredibly lavish production value and major star power, but was based on a novel propagating the Southern myths about the Civil War and among other things, glamorizing slavery. 'Lost Boundaries' is quite humble by comparison, but dared to confront white supremacy in America, and most notably, in a northern state (though interestingly, changed the ending of the real-life family, thus doing a bit of glamorizing of its own, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself here).
The film should get a lot of credit for treating the subject of light-skinned black people 'passing' as white, and the myriad identity issues around that (with oneself, one's family, and the community). It doesn't hold back in showing the cruelty of subtle racism - people who are friendly on the surface, but harbor ugly views. Among others things, there's a nurse who doesn't want to submit a black man's blood during a war blood drive, a woman who doesn't want to serve cake to a black man invited to a party as a friend, and institutions like hospitals and the Navy who simply won't take black doctors or officers. We see just how ridiculous it is that the merest drop of black blood in a family tree is enough to taint a person and incite racism (the supreme irony of course, being that a "superior race" could be so vulnerable). The black people in this film who can't pass are also treated with dignity and respect, not speaking in stereotypes and just regular people.
At a time when America was just emerging from the nadir of race relations and creeping towards the Civil Rights Movement, there were a great many publications and speeches warning of the "mongrelization" of the white race if the segregation was ended and blacks were treated as equals. Indeed, this fear persists to this day, though the underlying white supremacy is (slightly) more cloaked. This film defies that racist view, which is all the more impressive considering the Production Code's edict against miscegenation. Theaters in several southern cities banned it, and while it may seem stilted or quaint today, it was certainly viewed as progressive bordering on radical at the time, and dangerous. I love it for all of those things even if I recognize its faults, one of which was the casting of white people in the lead roles. To me, that's regrettable but minor given what the film stood for, and when it was made.
As for entertainment today, I confess my mind wandered as the story played out. There is some nice footage in New England but little else to recommend the film on a technical level, and the story feels overly packaged with the narration. It doesn't go into depth about what it means to be black, and the alteration to the ending to make the audience feel good was disrespectful and a mistake, undercutting the power of what came before it. The performances are decent but the film lacks the feeling of real danger for these characters. It's worth seeing for the window into what progress looked like in 1949 though.
The film should get a lot of credit for treating the subject of light-skinned black people 'passing' as white, and the myriad identity issues around that (with oneself, one's family, and the community). It doesn't hold back in showing the cruelty of subtle racism - people who are friendly on the surface, but harbor ugly views. Among others things, there's a nurse who doesn't want to submit a black man's blood during a war blood drive, a woman who doesn't want to serve cake to a black man invited to a party as a friend, and institutions like hospitals and the Navy who simply won't take black doctors or officers. We see just how ridiculous it is that the merest drop of black blood in a family tree is enough to taint a person and incite racism (the supreme irony of course, being that a "superior race" could be so vulnerable). The black people in this film who can't pass are also treated with dignity and respect, not speaking in stereotypes and just regular people.
At a time when America was just emerging from the nadir of race relations and creeping towards the Civil Rights Movement, there were a great many publications and speeches warning of the "mongrelization" of the white race if the segregation was ended and blacks were treated as equals. Indeed, this fear persists to this day, though the underlying white supremacy is (slightly) more cloaked. This film defies that racist view, which is all the more impressive considering the Production Code's edict against miscegenation. Theaters in several southern cities banned it, and while it may seem stilted or quaint today, it was certainly viewed as progressive bordering on radical at the time, and dangerous. I love it for all of those things even if I recognize its faults, one of which was the casting of white people in the lead roles. To me, that's regrettable but minor given what the film stood for, and when it was made.
As for entertainment today, I confess my mind wandered as the story played out. There is some nice footage in New England but little else to recommend the film on a technical level, and the story feels overly packaged with the narration. It doesn't go into depth about what it means to be black, and the alteration to the ending to make the audience feel good was disrespectful and a mistake, undercutting the power of what came before it. The performances are decent but the film lacks the feeling of real danger for these characters. It's worth seeing for the window into what progress looked like in 1949 though.