Movie Review - Carmen Jones

Carmen Jones (1954)

Starring Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Bellafonte, and Olga James

Directed by Otto Preminger

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

It's true that in a musical, one doesn't exactly look for depth in performances.  Oftentimes, the emotion comes through in the songs rather than in the stilted dialog.  This is often why some folks dismiss the musical as a cinematic genre, but to me it comes with the territory.  Unfortunately, in Carmen Jones, a retelling of Bizet's opera Carmen utilizing the same music but with lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II, the songs barely scratch the surface of what should be intense emotions of the characters.  

With no depth in the lyrics, the simple story of the sexy Carmen Jones (Dorothy Dandridge) just treads water for nearly two hours.  The title character is a tramp and makes no apologies for that.  In her first song, the winning and sultry "Dat's Love" (set to Bizet's "Habanera"), alluring Carmen attempts to get army guy Joe (Harry Belafonte) to leave his down-home, prim and proper gal Cindy Lou (Olga James).  While he initially resists her temptations, Joe eventually gives in and finds his life spiraling out of control thanks to Carmen.

Problem Number One is that after "Dat's Love," the songs just fall flat.  Maybe it was the challenge of pigeonholing lyrics into already written music, but Hammerstein doesn't succeed here in the slightest.  Perhaps back in 1954, it seemed logical for Hammerstein to utilize improper English when writing the lyrics for the all black cast to sing, but in the new century, hearing people sing opera using "dat" for "that" and "de" for "the" just doesn't work.  I'm watching this movie now and not decades earlier, and in the present the songs are laughable.

Of course, it doesn't help that director Otto Preminger dubbed the voices of nearly all of his cast and that becomes Problem Number Two.  Hammerstein's lyrics are very operatic and even though nearly all of the actors were singers, Preminger still found it necessary to dub.  Fortunately, Carmen's dub is a near perfect fit, but whoever sang for Harry Belafonte was laughable.  It's not that the lips don't match up with the lyrics, but the deep baritone voice that is supposed to be Belafonte's never once is believable.  Considering that Belafonte's Joe has the most songs, it's a big failure for the film.

The saving grace of the film is Dorothy Dandridge who became the first African American woman to be nominated for Best Actress with her performance of the title character.  She is absolutely winning and incredibly sexy (in that 1950s kind of way) which is what is called for from the character.  Any time she was onscreen I was immediately drawn to her.  Everyone else in the cast just didn't cut it for me, particularly Belafonte who seemed to simply be going through the motions of the troubled and confused Joe.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+