Pioneer of socially conscious films
Remembering Stanley Kramer
By Monica
Moorehead
Upon hearing about the Feb. 19 death of the great
87-year-old pioneer director Stanley Kramer, I took the
opportunity to again watch one of his most awesome
masterpieces, "The Defiant Ones." This 1958 movie starred
Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as prisoners--one African
American and the other a racist white--who escape while chained
together.
Due to his powerful portrayal of Noah Cullen in this film,
Poitier became the first African American male ever nominated
for an Academy Award as Best Actor. The movie won the
distinguished New York Film Critics Awards for Best Picture and
Best Screenplay. Kramer won that award for Best Director.
The film explored the intense day-to-day relationship of
these two men from divergent social backgrounds, united in
their struggle to elude armed guards and bloodhounds in the
Deep South in order to gain freedom. One message of the film is
that sharing similar, personal hardships can help to bridge the
gap in terms of racial relations.
This film did not have a revolutionary message by any means.
But consider these facts.
This film was released just four years after the landmark
Supreme Court decision outlawing separate but unequal education
in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education.
"The Defiant Ones" was released two years before the
beginning of the massive sit-ins organized by Black college
students at segregated lunch counters in the South.
This film was released several years before the passage of
the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts.
"The Defiant Ones" was a progressive film in terms of its
political content. But its social impact for that particular
time period was nothing short of revolutionary.
'Freedom of expression was difficult'
Who was Stanley Kramer? He was a Jewish director who became
independent--by Hollywood standards--during the 1947 zenith of
the McCarthyite anti-communist, anti-Soviet witch-hunts.
During this period Sen. Joseph McCarthy organized
fascist-like Senate hearings that viciously targeted Hollywood
actors, writers, directors, producers and union organizers who
may have sympathized with communist ideas or had some kind of
friendly relations with the Communist Party.
If any Hollywood figure refused to "name names" of those who
may or may not have been associated with the Communist Party,
they were "blacklisted." This meant that those whose names were
on this list could not find employment. Many of them were
eventually driven out of Hollywood altogether.
The livelihood of these creative people was either
compromised or destroyed by the conservative executives who
controlled the big movie studios.
To avoid this situation Kramer raised enough money to begin
his own production company so that he could produce the kinds
of movies he wanted--movies that conveyed a socially conscious
message.
When asked why he made this decision, Kramer said: "To be
independent. The stories that I wanted to tell weren't being
accepted [by the Hollywood studio system.] To have the freedom
of expression was a difficult situation." (Directors Guild of
America Magazine, Dec. 1997-January 1998)
In 1949, he produced and directed a movie called "Home of
the Brave." The movie focused on the racism against African
American soldiers during World War II. The movie starred James
Edwards, the first African American actor to star in a major
film about racism against Black people.
Kramer's most popular film, made in 1967, was "Guess Who's
Coming to Dinner." This movie explored interracial romantic
relationships. That film starred Poitier, Katherine Hepburn and
Spencer Tracy.
As an independent filmmaker, Kramer hired some of the
Hollywood writers who were "blacklisted" to script some of the
films he directed.
They included Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith, who
wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for "The Defiant Ones." They
also wrote the screenplay for Kramer's "Inherit the Wind," a
film based on the real-life trials in Kansas that focused on
the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution versus the
reactionary premise of creationism.
Kramer also hired the late "blacklisted" director Edward
Dmytryk to direct some low-budget films.
Some of the other famous Kramer films included the
Oscar-winning "High Noon." That film's message metaphorically
attacked the McCarthyite purges. He made "Judgment at
Nuremberg," which dealt with the Nazi crimes against humanity
during World War II.
Kramer also made the anti-nuclear-war film "On the Beach,"
as well as two Marlon Brando films: "The Wild One" and "The
Men."
Poitier spoke about Kramer's role as a director.
Poitier was responding to a quote in Premiere magazine that
stated, "Poitier's performances were all about dignity."
(American Film Institute website)
Poitier answered: "It is not a piece unto itself, the Black
exploitation films and the kind of films that I did. It is
really a part of history." He added that today there are "very
few producers like the Stanley Kramers ... who gave us pictures
that were unheard of before then.
"Stanley Kramer made a picture called 'Home of the Brave'
when he had to shoot in secrecy," Poitier concluded, because
Kramer "was fearful that he would be shut down--it was a
picture that starred a Black actor--in those days."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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