Lost in the Stars ** (1974, Brock Peters, Melba Moore, Raymond St Jacques, Clifton Davis) – Classic Movie Review 12,557

Lost in the Stars is the very sincere and well-meaning 1974 film version of the Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson Broadway stage musical adaptation of the 1948 Alan Paton novel Cry, the Beloved Country. 

Directed by Daniel Mann, Lost in the Stars is the sincere, well-intentioned 1974 film version of the Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson Broadway stage musical adaptation of the 1948 Alan Paton novel Cry, the Beloved Country. The film is produced and released as part of the valuable series of works from American Film Theatre, adapting theatre shows into subscription-driven cinema films.

The plot in the screenplay by Alfred Hayes follows the journey of Zulu preacher the Reverend Stephen Kumalo (Brock Peters) to Johannesburg to find his long-missing son, Absalom (Clifton Davis). He discovers Absalom is a paroled felon living in a shanty town with his pregnant girlfriend (Melba Moore). Then Absolom becomes involved in a robbery that results in the death of a white anti-Apartheid advocate. After Absolom is jailed, tried and sentenced to death, his father is unable to carry on the work of his ministry.

The performing and singing of the strong cast (especially Brock Peters), the story’s great good spirit and the emotional songs help to enrich one of the American Film Theatre’s most sincere yet perhaps less successful ventures. It is troubled by a slow pace and an uncertain tone and mood. Crucially the film drops the moving final reconciliation between the Reverend Kumalo and the murdered man’s father, integral to the novel and the stage version.

Because of its attack on South Africa’s racial segregation system of Apartheid, the film could not be shot in South Africa, so exteriors were shot in Cottage Grove, Oregon, instead.

Apartheid ended in 1991 and in the first multiracial elections in April 1994 Mandela was elected the first President of South Africa.

The New York stage production by composer Kurt Weill and librettist Maxwell Anderson opened at the Music Box Theater on 30 October 1949 and closed on 1 July 1950 after 281 performances. It was Weill ‘s last work for the stage before his death in 1950.

A Broadway revival opened at the Imperial Theatre on 18 April 1972 but it closed on May 20 after 39 performances and eight previews. The cast featured Brock Peters as Stephen Kumalo. Peters was nominated for the Tony Award Best Actor in a Musical.

Ely Landau (January 20, 1920 – November 4, 1993) had a passion for adapting theatrical productions to film, and is also remembered for producing films of plays in the American Film Theatre series. They include A Delicate Balance (1973), The Homecoming (1973), Butley (1974), The Iceman Cometh (1974), Lost in the Stars (1974), Luther (1974), Rhinoceros (1974), Galileo (1975), In Celebration (1975), The Maids (1975), and The Man in the Glass Booth (1975).

Kurt Weill died of a heart attack on April 3, 1950, aged 50, in New York City. He is buried in Mount Repose Cemetery in Haverstraw, New York. On his gravestone are lyrics by Maxwell Anderson from the song ‘A Bird of Passage; from Lost in the Stars: This is the life of men on earth: Out of darkness we come at birth, Into a lamplit room, and then – Go forward into dark again.’ Maxwell Anderson included in his eulogy: ‘Kurt managed to make thousands of beautiful things during the short and troubled time he had.’

Two cinema adaptations of the book Cry, the Beloved Country have been made, the first in 1951 as Cry, the Beloved Country and the second in 1995 again as Cry, the Beloved Country (with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris).

The cast are Brock Peters as the Reverend Stephen Kumalo, Melba Moore as Irina, Raymond St Jacques as John Kumalo, Clifton Davis as Absalom, Paul Rogers as James Jarvis, Paula Kelly as Rose, Paulene Myers as Grace Kumalo, and John Williams as Judge.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,557

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