A Raisin in the Sun

Tomorrow, January 20, is Martin Luther King Day here in the US. As always, TCM is programming the day with films from a limited set of movies, since of course in the days before the civil rights movement there weren't lot of Hollywood movies that gave a prominent place to black actors. A movie that shows up a lot is the 1961 version of A Raisin in the Sun. This year, that airing comes on at 3:30 PM.

The movie opens up one Friday morning in a cramped apartment in Chicago. Ruth Younger (Ruby Dee) wakes gets out of bed, and goes to the living room/kitchen to wake up her son Travis, who sleeps on a day bed since the family doesn't have the space to give him a room of his own. Also in the family is Ruth's husband Walter (Sidney Poitier), his sister Beneatha (Diana Sands), and family matriarch Lena (Claudia McNeil). There's no patriarch in the family because Lena's husband recently died, and that in fact is a major part of the story.

The late father Younger had a life insurance policy, and that's about to pay off $10,000, which was a nice chunk of change back in 1961 when the movie was released. Everybody has something they could do with the money. Beneatha is a college student who has hopes of going to medical school, and a portion of that insurance money could really help her in that regard. Walter is forced to work as a chauffeur for a rich white guy, something that's been eating away on him as he thinks this is a horrendous indignity. He's got a couple of friends who would like to go into business together by opening a liquor store; some of that money would go a long way to paying Walter's portion of the down payment. And Lena would like a better house for the family, where Travis can have a room of his own and a yard to play in. And it's her money after all.

Further complicating matters is that this is the America of the early portion of the civil rights era, with all the racial issues that entails. Beneatha has two suitors competing for her affection. George (Louis Gossett Jr.) would be the safe choice, but Beneatha has become more radical on race relations, embracing Africa in a way that previous generations didn't; this is influenced in part by the other suitor, Joseph Asagai (Ivan Dixon), actually being from Nigeria. As for Walter, he finds that Mom is profoundly opposed to using the money for demon alcohol, one of many things driving Walter to drink. Ruth finds out that she's pregnant again, and worries about how they're going to be able to afford another child. She even thinks about getting an abortion, but that's another thing that absolutely horrifies Mom.

So Lena decides to force matters by going down to the bank and using a portion of that money for a down payment on a house in a nice neighborhood, part for Beneatha, and the rest for a checking account in Walter's name. Everybody kind of comes around to the idea of having a house of their own. Well, not quite everybody. The Youngers will be the family integrating the neighborhood, and the neighborhood "improvement association", represented by Mr. Lindner (John Fiedler), tries to put the matter delicately that blacks and whites would be better off living apart.

A Raisin in the Sun is a movie with a lot of cultural imporantance, being based on a play that was one of the first big productions by a black playwright and dealing with the racial issues that it does. For me, the movie is a bit of a mixed bag. Parts of it are quite good but at the same time it feels like the movie takes a while to get to the big conflict over segreagation. And when it does get there, the last half hour or so of the movie has the cast, especially Poitier and McNeil, engage in some shocking overacting. I'm not certain whether that's an issue with the screenplay or the director not reining the actors in, but the histrionics are way over the top.

Still, the significance of A Raisin in the Sun makes it a movie that should be seen; tomorrow's airing is your chance to see it.