Home of the Brave (1949)

"Independently produced by 35-year-old fledgling moviemaker Stanley Kramer, Home of the Brave [1949] launched Hollywood's cycle of problem pictures in the late 1940s. The picture also went against all the then-acceptable theories of Hollywood moviemaking. It was shot on a shoestring budget without big name stars and with an offbeat subject matter. In the successful Broadway play by Arthur Laurents on which the film was based, the hero had been a young Jewish soldier, the victim of anti-Semitism within the military. In the film producer Kramer shrewdly substituted a Negro character for the Jewish protagonist.

 

Today this remains a film of historical importance and interest - and it's a movie that still has a certain wallop, affecting audiences, black and white, in an emotional way. In his essay "The Shadow and the Act," Ralph Ellison wrote that Home of the Brave and the other three problem pictures (Pinky, Lost Boundaries, and Intruder in the Dust) all touched on a "deep center of American emotion." These movies got at something American films of the past had never approached (or perhaps feared): a look at the ties between the races and also the deep-seated nests of American racism itself. Despite their flaws or compromises, today they still work because they take a dare and set up a confrontation. One is forced to deal with racial issues."

 

- Donald Bogle, from Blacks in American Films and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia 

 

Status: Available for purchase.