Another of Zanuck's directors was Jean Negulesco, (the two of them were keen croquet players and Negulesco apparently a sore loser). He was born in Romania; one of the many who came from Mitteleuropa and eventually ended up in Hollywood. Negulesco had spent his teenage years in Vienna and then moved to Paris to be an artist and designer, and was rather good at it. He went across the Atlantic in the mid-1920s for a New York exhibition of his paintings, and found his way to Hollywood. He first did a series of velvety noirs at Warner, such as The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), and later, in the 1950s, came to be known for his Technicolor and CinemaScope romances, such as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and Three Coins in a Fountain (1954). Andrew Sarris memorably divided (in The American Cinema) Negulesco's career into two parts, B.C. and A.C. (i.e. Before CinemaScope and After CinemaScope). Sarris preferred the B.C. part and said the A.C. part was "completely worthless", but whether that is fair is debatable. Though The Mask of Dimitrios is probably Negulesco's best film, tied with Deep Valley (1947), there are merits in some of the later films too and Negulesco's known classics are mostly from the A.C. era, such as the two mentioned above. But Negulesco's career is mostly forgotten and unseen, and among the many unknown films there are many that are far more interesting than the famous ones.
Ida Lupino and Dane Clark in Deep Valley
After the second world war, Zanuck, who was a liberal of sorts, decided to embark on a project to highlight social issues, including racism. This resulted in films like Gentlemen's Agreement (Kazan 1947), Pinky (Kazan 1949) and No Way Out (Mankiewicz 1950). Negulesco's Lydia Bailey (1952) is also one of Zanuck's, shall we say, racially conscious films. But unlike the earlier ones, which are more restrained and in black and white, Lydia Bailey is very emotional and in aggressive Technicolor. The argument here is not that Lydia Bailey is a forgotten masterpiece; in terms of artistry and acting it is average to good, and not even Negulesco's best film. The argument is that it has interesting politics and that it fits in with other more famous films about racial issues made at the time.
It is set in 1802 in what is now called Haiti but was then Saint-Domingue; a French colony in which the slaves had rebelled in 1791, inspired by the French revolution, and partly led by Toussaint Louverture. In 1802 a new rebellion had broken out and in 1804, so after the end of the film's story, the French left and Haiti was declared an independent state. So there is a factual basis for the film, and Toussaint Louverture appears in the film (or rather a character by that name, spelled L'ouverture), as does Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon, but most of the main characters are fictional.
While most of Negulesco's films were focused on women, often with one or several as leading characters, that is not the case with Lydia Bailey, despite its title. The main character is instead an American lawyer, Albion Hamlin, He arrives in Saint-Domingue to get a signature on some papers to grant his impoverished government access to a large estate on mainland US, which will be a much-needed source of income. The reason he is sent to Saint-Domingue is because Lydia Bailey, the woman who can sign over the rights, are living there with a French aristocrat, Gabriel D'autremont, on a plantation. With the Americans evacuating the place and both the French and the Haitians suspicious of Hamlin's mission and loyalties he is immediately in danger. He is helped by King Dick, a Haitian and former slave, who is close to the leader of the resistance movement, i.e. Toussaint Louverture. Soon this American, Hamlin, who at first took no interest in the local politics, finds himself fighting side by side with King Dick against imperialism and oppression. Sympathising with the Haitians, Hamlin says that if he was one of them "I'd kill every white man I could lay my hands on." It is at times a cruel film, as it begins with the murder of a young boy and towards the end there is another killing of a child.
One might almost get the feeling that Lydia Bailey was based on some unknown historical novel by Graham Greene but the source material is a novel written by Kenneth Roberts, and adapted by Phillip Dunne and Michael Blankfort. The film is an anti-imperialist rallying call, where most of the heroes are black Haitians, and the white characters are either evil or, in the case of Hamlin and Lydia Bailey, naive and in need of an education to come around to the side of justice. King Dick, as part of this education, quotes Plato and says that "True courage is to follow a wise man." with himself obviously being that wise man. Hamlin says at the end that he now understands why the Haitians consider Toussaint Louverture as their George Washington. (Thomas Jefferson is also name-checked, as is Benjamin Franklin.)
While not shot on location it does have an atmospheric and vibrant style and Technicolor is used to vivid effect. There are many shots and images that are extraordinary in their use of colour. It could very well be Negulesco's most stylish colour film, with the help of cinematographer Harry Jackson. There is also a very fine close-up of Lydia Bailey as she is about to leave the plantation and her old life. She suddenly stops, and the camera lingers on her face for a long time while she seems to process everything that is going on, and then she collects herself and continue her escape.
She is played by Anne Francis and Dale Robertson plays Hamlin, but the real star is William Marshall as King Dick, in his first performance. He would later mainly play bit parts in TV-series and also the title role in Blacula (William Crain 1972). He had a very successful stage career however. Here he is easy-going, resourceful, resolute, witty, intelligent, compassionate and a natural leader. It is impossible not to be seduced by him, even though he is at times quite ruthless. In the end he waves goodbye to Hamlin and Bailey as they flee to an American gunboat. The last shot is of him standing in the harbour, one arm raised, with Cap-Français burning behind him, before he turns around to go back to continue his fight for a free Haiti.
It is easy to draw connections to the real world of 1952, when the film was made. At the time the French were fighting, and losing, a war in Indochina against the Vietnamese. In 1954 their time was up, after the battle of Dien Bien Phu. When the French left the Americans stepped in (and this time Graham Greene did write about it, The Quiet American), to well-known and disastrous results. But here, in Lydia Bailey, the American hero stands with the oppressed and the colonised.
The world premiere of the film took place in Haiti, in Port-au-Prince, with the president Paul Magloire holding a reception. What the Haitians thought of the film I do not know.
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There were other films from 1949 about racial intolerance, Lost Boundaries (Alfred Werner) and Home of the Brave (Mark Robson), but they were not produced by Zanuck and Fox. Most of these late 1940s anti-racist films are compromised in various ways but it is worth pointing out that one stands out: Clarence Brown's Intruder in the Dust (1949). It is the best of them, and Brown managed to get financed by MGM. I wrote about it here.
My earlier piece about Henry King here. My earlier piece about Otto Preminger here. My earlier piece about Joseph MacDonald here. My earlier piece about Kazan's Wild River here.
