Cry, The Beloved Country (1951)
Zoltan Korda
Posted by Jim Mayor on Oct 21st 2022
Cry, the Beloved Country (1951) is a moving adaptation of Alan Paton’s book of the same name. It takes place in South Africa in the early days of apartheid, which was n place from 1948 to 1991. Reverend Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) is a poor rural priest whose children have abandons the poor rural life for the big city – Johannesburg – like most poor rural young people, once the make it to the city they forget their families. So the poor guy sets out to check on his son and daughter. Thankfully he arrives safely and is taken under the wing of a young priest, Reverend Msimangu, played by a young Sidney Poitier. Kumalo finds things much worse than he expected, and only bad things happen.
The point of the film is primarily to show the affects of apartheid. It might help to note the words from Wikipedia pertaining to the making of the movie, which was the first major film shot in South Africa. “Sidney Poitier and Canada Lee and producer/director Zoltan Korda informed the South African immigration authorities that Poitier and Lee were not actors but were Korda's indentured servants; otherwise, the two black actors and the white Director would not have been allowed to associate with each other while they were in the country.”
This was Lee’s last movie, he died in 1952. Sometimes it was difficult to tell if he was really ailing or was just a great actor.
Posted by Kenneth Orme on Jun 4th 2015
Filmed on location in South Africa some sixty years ago, CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY is an outstanding adaptation of the novel by Alan Paton. A young Sidney Poitier plays guide/host to a rural black Anglican minister seeking his wayward son only to find the boy trapped in a homicide trial of his own creation, the victim being son of a white farmer from his own small native town. Mutual suffering unites two fathers driven to bond initially out of a desperate search for understanding. Highly recommended drama, with exceptionally convincing acting.
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