Alicia I love this movie so much

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Lechuguilla Racial issues overlay this B&W film about a young Black woman who returns to her roots, only to find that little has changed among the townsfolk or in the life of her poverty-stricken grandmother. The story makes Pinky (played by Jeanne Crain) a light-skin Black. Her attitude starts out bitter and resentful, but later changes.If the story were made in modern times, the racial message would be too heavy-handed. The villains are starkly obvious. But given the 1940s, the message probably was rather daring.The plot gets off to a slow start. And Pinky is not all that sympathetic. But the plot picks up later in sync with Pinky's evolving attitudes. I think the script could have done a better job of setting the story within a specific geographic locale. I don't recall any cues or dialogue that indicates exactly where the story is set. The script is actually rather weak; the viewer can easily pick apart the story's logic.Visually, the film is something of a dud. Although the B&W lighting is good, sets look cheap and minimal. One gets the impression that the film was shot entirely on Hollywood back-lots. There's no real sense of a Southern environment.That a White woman was cast as a Black woman was a convention that apparently continued even into the 1950s. Given the era's racial attitudes, I suppose that's the only way White viewers would accept Pinky ... how dreadful. Sixty years later, the casting of Jeanne Crain as Pinky is enormously distracting; it just doesn't work. Casting Ethel Waters as the grandmother makes her character something of a stereotypical Aunt Jemima, though Waters does a fine job in the role.Overall acting is above average. I've never understood why Ethel Barrymore gets such rave recognition. In this film, she's no better than other actors, including the quite effective Evelyn Varden as a greedy, prejudiced old White woman.Probably the best that can be said of "Pinky" is that the story was ahead of its time, for the 1940s. And that's saying a lot. But sixty years later, the film seems like something from out of the Twilight Zone, with that upside-down casting.

bkoganbing What was fascinating and groundbreaking in 1949 is now a bit old fashioned when it comes to the film Pinky. Like Guess Who's Coming To Dinner a generation later, 20th Century Fox and director Elia Kazan went as far as they could and not hurt the box office.Remember after all even with 'message' pictures, people have to come to the theater to see and get the message. If it were done 20 years later someone like Lena Horne would have been cast in the part of Pinky. It was the kind of role that Lena wanted to do at MGM, but they wouldn't give her, they wouldn't be that bold. Still I can't fault Jeanne Crain's performance which got her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She lost the Oscar sweepstakes to Olivia DeHavilland for The Heiress.Crain as Pinky has come home to her southern town after many years of living in the north and passing for white with her light features. As she puts she started when a train conductor escorted to the white section of a train she was riding on back when she left to go to nursing school. Of course the news that she's done that is shocking to her grandmother Ethel Waters who raised her. It's also a culture shock to Crain to come home and relearn segregated ways after living in the north. When Sammy Davis, Jr. wrote his autobiography Yes I Can he said he learned about racism for the first time in the army. Working in show business with his dad and uncle where he was a child performer like Michael Jackson was with his brothers he was insulated from the realities of the outside world. Show business was a cocoon for Davis just as passing was for Crain's Pinky character. She has some nasty incidents including one with Nina Mae McKinney who resents what she sees as high toned ways.Still Crain through her grandmother accepts a position to be a nurse companion to grand dame Ethel Barrymore who owns quite a bit of property. Her family is the local gentry there and Barrymore is dying. When Barrymore dies she leaves her estate, house and land to Crain and that gets her blood relatives led by Norma Varden all bent out of joint and ready to contest the will.Which sets the film up for a trial similar to the one in To Kill A Mockingbird although this is a civil matter. The result of which you'll have to see the film for.Besides those already mentioned look for sterling performances by Basil Ruysdael as Crain's attorney, William Lundigan as a white doctor who has fallen for Pinky, and Griff Barnett as a sympathetic doctor.The two Ethels, Barrymore and Waters, both received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress. And as luck would have it Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchester were also nominated in that same category for Come To The Stable. So with two double nominees for two pictures, Mercedes McCambridge went right up the middle and won for her performance in All The King's Men. Made easier of course by the fact that Mercedes was also in the Best Picture of 1949.Pinky is both old fashioned and groundbreaking. We'd never see casting like this again, but at the same time we can applaud the courage and daring it took for 20th Century Fox to make this film and for Jeanne Crain who got her career role out of it.

edwagreen Outstanding 1949 film with director Elia Kazan matching his 1947 Oscar winner "Gentleman's Agreement." A very belated kudos for Mr. Kazan in tackling social issues, in this case racial prejudice.What performances are depicted here. Jeanne Crain is the trained nurse who returns to the south and is immediately caught up in its worst form of bigotry. She is the granddaughter of the kind, wisely, illiterate woman who takes in clothing and sacrificed all so that her granddaughter could get ahead. Ethel Waters was so adept in her performance here. She is equally matched by Ethel Barrymore, as a crotchety woman, never forgiven by Pinky for a childhood incident, but ailing now and as a favor to Grandma Waters, Pinky agrees to take care of her.What a social problem erupts when the Barrymore character dies and it is revealed that she left her property to Pinky. A cousin and a cousin by marriage contest the will in court. Evelyn Varden, as the heavy set, bigoted cousin-in-law is terrific and a scene stealer in every scene she appears.This is an outstanding film depicting racial inequity and ultimate redemption.William Lundigan is memorable as the doctor who loved Pinky, but could not marry her. He could not accept her way of life.The film showed that there was anything but racial harmony in America. Notice the musical theme throughout the film is exactly the same as the music played at the beginning of "Gentleman's Agreement." Am sure that Kazan and 20th Century-Fox had plenty to do with that.

gamay9 I feel that the user reviews were articulate and genuine but the casting improper. Jeanne Crain is too fair to portray a black woman. A better choice would have been Jennifer Jones. It is not only skin color, but features. As beautiful as Halle Berry is, for example, she is not as white as Jeanne Crain. The grouchy relative of Ms. Em even said: "Why, she's whiter than me."The film is good but the one thing that left me disappointed was this one factor. I know women who have no black heritage in their ancestory yet they have a darker complexion and broader features than Ms. Crain.Trite point? Probably, but it distracted me from the essence of the film.