Island in the Sun ** (1957, James Mason, Joan Fontaine, Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, John Williams, Joan Collins, Michael Rennie) – Classic Movie Review 5,677

Hollywood struggles to bring the Alec Waugh bestseller about the troubled lives and inter-racial loves in the exotic Fifties British West Indies to the screen, in the then controversial 1957 drama film Island in the Sun.

Director Robert Rossen is struggling in the 1957 drama Island in the Sun, forced by producer Darryl F Zanuck, the 20th Century Fox studio and the conventions of the day to dilute the then supposedly daring 1955 Alec Waugh bestseller about the troubled lives and inter-racial loves in the exotic Fifties British West Indies.

More honesty about the race issue was needed than Hollywood was prepared for in 1957. However, even so, an inter-racial screen kiss caused controversy in America.

This somewhat tedious film turned out to be one of Rossen’s least impressive. Instead of being pioneering and provocative, dramatically it is stodgy, old fashioned and out of date. However, it may be worth trying for the fine playing of an all-star Fifties vintage cast and for Freddie Young’s splendid, distinguished CinemaScope, DeLuxe colour cinematography.

On the fictitious island of Santa Marta in the Caribbean during colonial British rule, a British police inspector Colonel Whittingham (the typecast but excellent John Williams) dogs a patriarch Maxwell Fleury (James Mason) who has killed the morally unscrupulous Englishman Hilary Carson (Michael Rennie) he thought was having a fling with his wife Sylvia Fleury (Patricia Owens). The young, handsome, charismatic black politician David Boyeur (Harry Belafonte) falls in love with Mason’s upper class white sister-in-law Mavis Norman (Joan Fontaine) but rejects her because he thinks that an inter-racial relationship would mar his political future.

Also in the cast are Dorothy Dandridge as beautiful West Indian drug store clerk Margot Seaton pursued by governor’s aide Denis Archer (John Justin), Joan Collins as Maxwell’s alluring sister Jocelyn Fleury romancing Euan Templeton (Stephen Boyd), Basil Sydney, Diana Wynyard, Ronald Squire, Hartley Power and Barbara Upton.

Island in the Sun is written by Alfred Hayes and scored by Malcolm Arnold.

It is Zanuck’s debut feature as independent, released via his old company 20th Century Fox.

Belafonte performs the hit title song ‘Island in the Sun’, written by him and Irving Burgie. There are more than 40 cover versions, notably by The Merrymen, José Carreras, Caterina Valente in German, Henri Salvador in French and The Righteous Brothers.

Filming started 15 October 1956 in the West Indies in Barbados and Grenada, and then in late November the unit moved to the studio in London. It was released on 12 June 1957. The budget was $3 million and it earned $5 million in US and Canada cinema rentals.

Joan Fontaine received poison pen mail, including threats from the Ku Klux Klan, after playing interracial love scenes with Harry Belafonte, and gave the mail to the FBI.

It is alleged that Belafonte had an affair with Joan Collins during filming.

It was banned in Memphis, Tennessee.

Robert Rossen (1908–1966) is best known for The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) [screenplay only], Body and Soul (1947), All the King’s Men (1949) and The Hustler (1961). He was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), 1951-53, after refusing to testify, but then, to save his career, admitted to being a member of the Communist Party (1937-1945) in May 1953, and implicated 57 other people.

Dandridge and Belafonte had starred in Carmen Jones (1954) together.

The cast are James Mason as Maxwell Fleury, Harry Belafonte as David Boyeur, Joan Fontaine as Mavis Norman, Joan Collins as Jocelyn Fleury, Dorothy Dandridge as Margot Seaton, Michael Rennie as Hilary Carson, Patricia Owens as Sylvia Fleury, John Justin as Denis Archer, Stephen Boyd as Euan Templeton, Diana Wynyard as Mrs. Fleury, Basil Sydney as Julian Fleury, John Williams as Colonel Whittingham, Ronald Squire as Governor Templeton, Hartley Power as Bradshaw and Barbara Upton.

Harry Belafonte died from congestive heart failure at home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, aged 96, on 25 April 2023, He won three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award and a Tony Award. He was a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and a vocal critic of the policies of the George W Bush and Donald Trump administrations.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,677

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