New York Architecture and a True New York Tale

I love New York.  And what I especially love about NYC are the buildings and their varied array of architectural styles, heights and times periods they were built in.  Among my favorite buildings in NYC is the Flatiron...

Edward Steichen
Flatiron Building 1904
(This file is in the public domain in the United States)

...and Radio City Music Hall.

As a former employee of Radio City Music Hall I can tell you what an amazing place with many surprising nooks-n-crannies it is--literally.    When I worked there, some rooms (dorms for the performers) seemed at that time, to be almost nearly untouched by time, with beds, sinks, fixtures and other items dating back to the 1930's.  Walking through there was like being taken back, through a time machine.  Also, having toured different areas of the Music Hall, including the sound control room which was (and most likely still is) high up near the ceiling giving spectacular views of the entire stage and seating, it didn't take me long to conclude that the entire Radio City complex, with its lower level area leading to subway and plenty of specialty shops,  was more like a city within a city.  My office, which I shared with my boss, overlooked the marquee giving us nice views of the building across the street and Avenue of the Americas. 


A True New York Tale

I began to first develop my love for New York buildings...New York architecture as a young child visiting Manhattan with my dad.  By then my parents had purchased their second house in Queens having migrated from Manhattan.  But my uncle, my father's twin brother still lived with his family in Manhattan.  With my uncle being my father's only relative living in New York, they were very close and visits to his Manhattan apartment were nearly every Sunday.  It was during these weekly visits, these Sunday drives into the city that my father would point out various buildings to me, to see and appreciate.  My father was enamored of New York architecture and one who never ceased to delight in and hold respect for those towering canyons of steel. 

Our sight-seeing on wheels became a ritual of sorts with us.  But my favorite part of it was when we had come off the 59th Street Bridge and made our way to where the Plaza Hotel was. I can recall how I would spring to life feeling energized by the sights and sounds of the Plaza, limos, handsome cabs with their tranquil horses clip-clopping along, and scores of people out walking at this busy intersection.  My father would always drive through the park (Central Park) in order to cross from the East to the West Side where my uncle and his family lived.  Once we arrived on the West Side, finding parking was always a problem which aggravated my poor father to no end.  On more than many occasions he seemed more like the Flying Dutchman in search of a landing pad.  And there were times we'd end up walking blocks from the car.  But this too gave us an opportunity to appreciate the various building structures in New York, as we walked past one type after another.

On the way home was the best part of it all.  By this time it was sunset and night time would be approaching fast.  Back through Central Park we'd go--this time from the West to the East Side.  Sometimes I would stretch out in the backseat of the car (this is at a time before mandatory seat belt laws).  I would lie down and look out of the rear window in order to see the tops of the buildings as we drove and got closer to the East Side. My father would usually have some music playing on the radio, what you might today call "elevator music", and this time we would both just quietly and contently soak in the sights and sounds of the city around us, with it's skyscrapers lit up against the backdrop of a velvet sky. 

My mother, being from Texas, would often fuss with my father to 'leave New York and move west'.  Neither one of us believed she really meant it though.  My dad would protest, steadfastly pronouncing  that he wasn't going anywhere--that he would die in New York.  Years later, being a man of his word, that is exactly what he did--right there in a Manhattan hospital among the skyscrapers. 

-DiamondHead




Here is a wonderful artist who really likes to draw New York buildings and who leaves 'no stone' unturned.

"All The Buildings In New York" work by artist James Gulliver Hancock
http://allthebuildingsinnewyork.blogspot.com/

Anna Lucasta Review/Commentary Part II "Anatomy of a Movie"

Image by FlamingText.com

"Anna Lucasta is one of the hottest properties in the history of entertainment. It was the world's first urban play starring an all African-American cast."

Anna Lucasta...

Anatomy of a Movie

(Opportunity Found, Opportunity Lost)

by SDGDiamondHead

Riding on the wings of the 1944 Broadway hit that created a theatrical sensation, Hollywood offered up its own cinematic version of Anna Lucasta based on Philip Yordan's compelling drama. Columbia Pictures paid a whopping 400,000 dollars for the rights to Anna Lucasta--a  record amount at that time. But their original plans for casting this big screen version did not include an all-Black cast at the time, as the Broadway stage hit had. If, according to box-office success, millions of theater patrons in America and in London were saying that they were ready for something different from Black actors, something other than singing and dancing, Hollywood was not convinced.

At that time there weren't many Black cinematic examples to measure success by. In the decades leading up to the 1960's, all-negro movies made in Hollywood were the rare exception and not the rule. Of those that were made, nearly all were musicals. More problematic was the fact that all-negro film dramas were not considered to be commercially successful. Unwilling to move against this current of the film industry's racial attitude, Columbia Pictures hired a cast of all-White actors for the very first film version of Anna Lucasta--a drama that had by now become synonymous with Black Broadway and touring stage productions. 

With actress Paulette Goddard in the title role, the first film version of Anna Lucasta was released in 1949. In its first film incarnation, this dazzling, powerhouse drama was a critical and commercial failure. Yet in that same year, the all-negro touring company of Anna Lucasta was still packing in audiences. They were playing in Chicago at the Shubert Theater and on tour all around the country.

                                                                                 Paulette Goddard in Anna Lucasta 1949

In Hollywood, as with most things in life, timing is everything. The time when an event takes place or does not take place is most often as important as the event itself. In the strange case of Anna Lucasta, timing could have played a pivotal role in the altering of film history. With insight and analysis, we can look back through the corridors of time to visualize how a 1940s all-Black film version of Anna Lucasta might have been the catalyst that changed the trajectory of a segment of film making, and how differently Blacks would, from then on, be depicted in the movies. Producing Anna Lucasta in 1948 as an all-Black film, may have been too big of a gamble according to some Hollywood studio executives, but it might also have been a gamble and a game-changer with significant and lasting payoffs. 

By that time, many American audiences had grown accustomed to seeing Hollywood's Black stereotyped characters. It did not exactly come as a surprise to anyone to see Blacks in these demeaning, tragic, or at best, singing and dancing roles. The feeling in Hollywood was that the White viewing public would not pay to see movies with Blacks in non-stereotypical roles. Yet in glaring contradiction, the tremendous success of the all-negro stage version of Anna Lucasta was staring Hollywood in the face as a trust-worthy indicator of exactly what White Americans were willing to pay to see. If Hollywood had acted upon this market indicator, then there may have been no real reason to fear that a 1940's all-negro movie version of Anna Lucasta would have been a box office failure. The very opposite was the most likely scenario.   

Hilda Simms Broadway production of Anna Lucasta 

Indie film maker Oscar Micheaux, with his small-budget films starring all-Black casts, was in fact already providing all of the proof Hollywood needed that White Americans did in fact have an interest in and a desire to see movies with greater diversity. Micheaux's films were regularly watched and enjoyed by both Black and White audiences--surprisingly, even in parts of the deep South. Where pockets of racism and censorship existed in the deep South, Hollywood could have met resistance with resistance, flexing its cinematic muscles to usher in a new era in Black films. It has been noted by film historians that "negro movie night" at some Jim Crow-era theaters, was actually as popular with White movie goers as it was with Black audiences. By financially supporting what were then known as "race films", scores of average White Americans regularly demonstrated their willingness to support films which did not portray Blacks in degrading roles opposite White actors.

  
All-black race film Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941)

Full Movie-Public Domain Film

                                                         

Moving forward on this trajectory, one can speculate that a 1949 all-negro film of Anna Lucasta (this exciting dramatic property that was a ready-made game changer for Black actors), may have ushered in an earlier departure from Black stereotypes and a new Hollywood era of Blacks in film. A 1940's all-negro film version of this critically acclaimed drama could have been the most viable vehicle for a crucial turning point in film, where both the images of Blacks in films and the future expectations of both Black and White audiences, would have from then on been permanently altered. Perhaps it can be said that the greatest legacy of Anna Lucasta, is that it was an important vehicle for its time because of its potential to significantly raise the bar at just the right time. In hindsight, we can see that timing is everything.

It isn't hard to envision Hilda Simms having electrified the silver screen with her style of charisma and beauty as she recreated her role of Anna. Along with the rest of the cast of Anna Lucasta, these seasoned Black actors would have given movie-goers a chance to grow...to step away from the narrow-minded conditioning of the Black stereotypes that were continuously before them.  This was actually the very dream that was envisioned by the American Negro Theatre (ANT) when they first seized the opportunity to produce this drama for their Harlem audiences.  

If only Hollywood of the 1940's had turned to the American audiences that really mattered, they would have seen that there was opportunity to raise the bar. As early as a decade prior to the release of the all-White Anna Lucasta (starring Paulette Goddard), Black audiences across the country had primed Hollywood in demonstrating their enthusiasm in seeing Black performers portrayed in non-stereotyped and even non-racial roles. Between 1936-1939, The New Deal Federal Theater Project was responsible for bringing classic drama (which had been adapted for all-negro productions), to millions of Black and White theatergoers across the country. One of the most successful of these productions was Macbeth which was directed by the great Orson Wells. Set in Haiti, Macbeth was the Shakespearean drama that positively electrified Harlem...and baffled theater critics. The enthusiasm for this Shakespearean classic was so widespread that it created a sensation wherever it went. In addition, it inspired similar all-negro productions of classic drama all across the country. The first Black production of Macbeth, which played in Harlem to packed houses at the Lafayette Theater, performed for ten weeks before going on tour downtown, then to Bridgeport, Hartford, Dallas, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Syracuse.  "Black" Macbeth and similar classic adaptations, provided for Black actors that rare opportunity of performing outside of the minstrel type shows, where singing and tap-dancing were "customary" for Black actors. For Black actors then, adapted classic drama also relieved these actors of the subordinate roles of playing the  standard maid or butler roles in all-White productions.

Orson Wells & the "Black" Macbeth Harlem Production

By 1939 the winds of change began to blow as federal support for such New Deal theater programs were eliminated. This, in part, was due to hostile anti-New Deal right-wing congressmen who hated the idea that government funds were being used for theater projects. After 1939 and the withdrawal of federal funds for any Theater Project, Black actors once again found themselves pushed right back into demeaning stereotyped roles in all-White shows. Even Black technicians who had been trained by The Federal Theater Project, found that they were excluded from every single theatrical union in the United States. Once again in the annals of American history, the "welcome" mat of opportunity had been yanked from beneath their feet.

Given the success of the original stage version of Anna Lucasta, it is not hard to see how a 1940's all-negro film version of this drama might have also spawned a tremendous success, having even more widespread appeal than its Broadway predecessor. Once again, let's look at the element of timing. A 1940's all-Black Anna would have been produced at a most opportune time. Without question, this was the best time in film history, when many great Hollywood films like Citizen Cane (1941), The Best Years of our Lives (1946), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Laura (1944), Mr. Skeffington (1944), Rebecca (1940), Stormy Weather (1943), Spellbound (1945) and Pinky (1949)--to name just a few--were carving out their places in cinema history, en route to becoming part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

A 1940's all-Black Anna would also have risen up at a time when some of Hollywood's very best writers, directors, producers, editors, composers, set and costume designers would have been there and available to apply their skills in the making of this film. You can argue that these same skills could very well have been applied to the 1940's White film version of Anna Lucasta (with Paulette Goddard), yet that Anna was a box office flop. Keep in mind, however, that the dramatic property of Anna Lucasta had not only become a popular and well-known hit with Hilda Simms and the original Broadway cast, but the name of this dramatic property had long become synonymous with all-Black performances.

Hollywood was tone-deaf.

But now moving along on our alternate trajectory, with a success in tow using Anna Lucasta as their precedent, Hollywood studios could have, with less resistance, gone on to produce more and more non-stereotyped, non-degrading dramatic, comedic, altruistic, and esoteric films with Black actors. And if those cinematic geniuses had so acted during this golden age in the film industry, the history of filmmaking in America would have taken a very noticeable and history-changing turn to the left. Without question, a 1940's Black film version of this highly popular and powerful drama could have begun to break down important racial barriers both in Hollywood and possibly society. Once again, the timing of an event is just as important as the event itself. Through this small window of opportunity, what doors might have opened afterwards?

Open windows of opportunity in areas of the arts and entertainment, where previously it had been practically impossible for Blacks to gain a foothold, have gradually opened doors for Blacks after a commercially successful all-Black production provided the impetus for doing so.  This is what Gershwin's Porgy and Bess did for Blacks in opera.

Todd Duncan & Anne Brown in original Porgy and Bess

Before Porgy and Bess, Black classical singers were nonexistent in opera houses across the country. Gershwin's 1930s opera, with its all-Black cast, provided a great opportunity. Doors which had been previously shut tight, gradually opened for Black classical singers. Opera houses began to hire Black classical singers across the country and around the world. To date, Porgy and Bess continues to be a very valuable wedge for Black opera singers---one that opens doors of opportunity into the still highly competitive field of opera.  

"The decade marked by the Great Depression and leading into World War II is remembered as Hollywood’s Golden Age. During this period, new genres were formed, new stars were born, and the studio system rose to mammoth status. The eight major studios, each known for its distinctive style and stars, collectively produced 95% of all American films. More than 7,500 features were released by the studios between 1930 and 1945 to eager audiences.  More than 80 million people took in a least one film per week at the height of the cinema’s popularity. This period also saw the introduction of the Production Code, B-Films, and the first animated feature of Snow White. Hollywood’s Golden Age began to decline in the late 1940’s due to the introduction of television, Hollywood blacklisting, and the ability of actors to become ‘free agents.’ A final blow to the industry occurred in 1948, when antitrust suits were filed against the major studios."--New Encyclopedia Britannica.  

Would that 1940's Hollywood had done similarly as Broadway had, and seen an all-negro adaptation of Anna Lucasta as a fantastic once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to raise standards in filmmaking, in time, they would have won over more audiences, transformed the movie industry and made money. The stage production of dramatic opportunity was a proven hit. and a built-in audience awaited Hollywood. All Hollywood had to do was to seize the bull by the horns and make this film well. Taking the "safe" route as they did, by completely ignoring the original all-negro Anna Lucasta, Hollywood magnificently produced an Oscar-worthy monument to the heartbreaking, self-destructive and dismal nature of the movie industry where race is concerned. Is it actually possible that 1940's Hollywood preferred to have an all-White movie that failed, rather than an all-Black one that succeeded? Well, ask Dred Scott.  Ask Jim Crow. Ask the countless of American Blacks whose lives were nullified by eugenics.  Ask countless others whose lives were nullified by the lynch rope. It was a time after the war, and yet it was also a time merely two decades removed, from what was the official beginning of the racial integrity movement in America--a movement which not only declared war upon the weak through eugenics, but inspired Hitler to do the same. And the embers of this era were somehow still blowing across America. It was a time when returning Black soldiers were not only denied jobs in the South, but incredibly, could also end up attacked and beaten for wearing their wartime uniforms. Sure; it would have been wonderful to have a piece of that "Double V for victory" (victory abroad and victory at home), offered in even a tribute as seemingly artificial as a non-racist and non-stereotyped Hollywood film. But with all of the problems Black Americans still faced in the 1940's, many would no doubt have lamented that not being so recognized was probably the least of their troubles.


A movie review dated August 12, 1949 reads:  

"Although it is a faithful adaptation of Philip Yordan's play, "Anna  Lucasta" has lost most of its electricity in film form. For the people  now appearing on the Capitol's screen in this pitiless exposition of  human wretchedness are not nearly as spirited or convincing in their  acting* as the Negro group that brought the play to Broadway five years  ago this month.  As the picture's producer and co-author of its screen play, Mr.  Yordan has kept the dialogue surprisingly pungent, considering  Production Code restrictions. However, he and Arthur Laurents might have  compressed their thoughts somewhat. There is so much talk going on most  of the time that, despite the able directorial assistance of Irving  Rapper, a heavy, static quality pervades the production.  "Anna Lucasta" was not written as a Negro drama. It was originally  conceived as the story of a sordid, impoverished Polish family in a  small Pennsylvania town and emerges as such on the screen. Mr. Yordan  writes with keen observation of a voracious pack of lower class "little  foxes." Externally the Lucastas are truly represented on the screen, but  somehow their actions don't appear genuine and this observer, at least,  could not get more than fitfully interested in the distasteful details  of their life."--Source, New York Times

Whatever the untold story is for Hollywood's refusal to follow through with the all-negro movie, Anna Lucasta, the fact remains that the original Anna Lucasta continues to stand as a unique drama--originally written for White actors, popularized by Black actors, then denied a timely arrival onto the silver screen with a Black cast. It is for these reasons and others, that the all-Black stage production of Anna Lucasta, is clearly one of the most historically important properties of American theater.

Anna Lucasta:
The All-Black Movie of "1958" 
The 1958 film version of Anna Lucasta teeter-totters somewhere between hilarity and high drama.

As the movie begins, we follow Anna walking the empty, nocturnal streets of the Port of San Diego. Except for the horn of a distant tugboat, the night air is filled with the lonely quiet of ships at sea. There isn't a sailor around to fill Anna's nighttime hours. She stops to light a cigarette. Then, with the weariness of a lost soul who has repeated this routine a thousand times before, she climbs the stairs to Noah's Bar and makes her usual nightly entree.

Anna in Noah's Bar

In 1958, an all-Black version of Anna Lucasta had finally made it's way to the silver screen.  United Artists obtained the rights to the film and decided to give it an all-Black cast. During the preceding decade, all-negro films had not grown any more popular with White audiences and few opportunities for dramatic, non-stereotyped parts were available to even the few Black film stars of the time. Considering the incredible shortage of opportunities for Black dramatic actors, it is surprising that the movie was cast with the stage and nightclub performers as follows: Eartha Kitt (Anna) and Sammy Davis Jr. (Danny Johnson). Although Eartha and Sammy Davis were certainly well-known for their wide-ranging versatility as stage performers, neither were experienced dramatic actors. The role of Rudolph Slocum went to a relatively unknown actor of the time named Henry Scott. Several of the supporting roles were played by actors of the original Harlem-to-Broadway production--Frederick O'Neal (Frank), Rosetta  LeNoire (as Stella) and Georgia Burke (as Theresa).

Sammy Davis Jr.

The  second version of Philip Yordan's drama fared little better than the first. That the later all-Black film version of Anna Lucasta was a commercial failure, may be due in part to its late arrival. Or perhaps as Philip Yordan felt, perhaps it was because both film versions of Anna Lucasta were miscast and misdirected. It is little wonder that Philip Yordan hated both films.

Incredibly, as with the White Anna Lucasta, history once again repeated itself. While the later Black film version of Anna Lucasta was flopping at the box office, simultaneously the all-Black stage version of Anna Lucasta was a hot theatrical property across the country. In the 1958 film version of Anna, the setting for the Lucasta household was changed from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles. Noah's Bar had been transplanted from a Brooklyn waterfront to a wharf in San Diego. From the beginning of this all-Black film version of Anna Lucasta, what is glaringly obvious is the hopeless miscasting of the lead parts of Anna (Eartha Kitt) and Danny (Sammy Davis Jr.). The type of onscreen chemistry these two had in Anna more closely resembled their off-screen relationship. Kitt and Davis were good friends off-screen. However, one aspect of their friendship was competitiveness between the two of them. This competitive energy, more than anything, is what comes across on the screen as these two move from scene to scene in the movie. The two seem to be trying to outdo each other--to the point where they appear more like Olympians sparring in a major competition than believable screen characters.

Kitt's love interest in the film, Rudolph Slocum (actor Henry Scott), does not quite jive with Kitt's onscreen personality either. Theirs is an underdeveloped, under directed, cardboard cut-out paper doll relationship onscreen. Even though it is evident that both actors are trying to make it work, in place of passion, what we really get is "romance lite", and the emotionless read-through of a brother and sister-ish relationship rather than a husband and wife-ish one.  This is most noticeable in the "dating scene" where during an evening stroll together in a park, Anna finds the courage to confess to Rudolph that she has lived the life of a prostitute. She recounts the story of her father's maniacal fury against her and how he finally kicked her out of their home. (Great way to spend a date, right?) Okay. Hand on chin, Rudolph listens attentively to her (looking here very much like the "Thinker" statue). Next scene: With grave concern, like a "big brother", Rudolph is proposing to Anna that "they should marry". He claims to love her any old way, and that the prostitution thing doesn't matter to him at all.  Next scene: Upon returning home, Anna's mother Theresa (delightfully played by Georgia Burke), sees them kissing and overhears that Rudolph has proposed marriage to "her little Anna".  She bursts out of the house and what follows is this rather interesting and sobering heart-to-heart amongst the three of them on why Anna must marry Rudolph.

Henry Scott, Georgia Burke & Eartha Kitt

Now, very interesting...here the emotional and tearful Anna is being urged (in what seems more like a good ole' preachy down home sermon than dialogue), by Theresa and incredibly, Rudolph, to not let this wonderful opportunity for happiness slip through her fingers.

Honestly, whenever I see this scene, I feel like through some strange trick of cinematic magic, I've been suddenly transported through the ages to an old movie palace where an Oscar Micheaux feature is playing on "colored" night. Anyone who is familiar with the dialogue in Micheaux's sermonizing "race films" will know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm sure that the stage version of this delicate and highly emotional scene must have played out far better than the 1958 film version's did. What were they thinking?

To continue...

Anna surrenders. She agrees to marry Rudolph. Okay, stop right there! Let's roll our cardboard cut-outs back out. None of the emotion that one would think is usually associated with the kind of deep love that would draw a man to marry a woman with Anna's past, is brought out in their performances. This very important aspect in this drama, between these two characters who are supposed to be deeply in love, was simply brush-stroked--and lightly so! There was no real tender meeting and greeting of the lips (their kissing scenes were too awkward, devoid of passion and uncomfortable to watch). There were no inspiring terms of endearment and no sense of a love-struck desperation on the part of Rudolph who, despite being handsome, loaded with "a wallet that makes him walk lop-sided", and being a good catch, WANTED Anna. Instead, we get cardboard paper dolls.

I guess my biggest problem with the onscreen romantic relationship of these two characters, is that I feel their romantic relationship was infantized. This reminded me of how for years, Black actors were stereotyped as sexless characters who should not be allowed to "offend" audiences by actually showing love and physical affection. Whether this outrageous stereotype slipped into the film or it was merely bad direction, remains to be known. But the subject matter of this deep love of a man forgiving a woman's unfortunate past (like cancelling out a debt) and loving her to the point of marriage, is a subject that should be acted and directed to the max. 
                                                                         

Henry Scott, Eartha Kitt & Sammy Davis in scenes after wedding

With the exception of a change of setting, from the East Coast to West Coast, the 1958 Anna   Lucasta, keeps intact the original plot and underlying theme of alcoholism and incest.
Veteran stage actor Rex Ingram, suffers more than a "lost weekend" in this movie. Playing the incestuous father driven out of his liquor-soaked mind because of his secret desire and his dirty shame, what Ingram's character suffers is more like unconsciousness. He performs for most of the movie from the inside of a bottle of cheap liquor (not that expensive liquor would have been better).

Rex Ingram ("De Lawd" from 1939's The Green Pastures) gives a gut-wrenching performance in Anna that reaches to operatic proportions. Coping as best as he can with bad direction, Ingram goes above and beyond the call of duty as a dirty coot who cannot tell the difference between his wife and his offspring. The hell-bent and hell-bound old bastard is intent on destroying the happiness of his daughter, rather than destroying the happiness of the director who is really the one driving him to drink!

John Proctor (as Stanley), Earth Kitt and Isabel Cooley (as Katie)

One of my favorite characters is the character of Frank played by Frederick O'Neal. O'Neal does a masterful job tempering drama with just the right touches of comic relief. The man is a scream with such ridiculous one-liners that he'll have you eagerly awaiting more. What is so funny about Frank's character is that he has a great comeback for everything, mixed with pseudo-wisdom, historical revisionism, male chauvinism and just plain ridiculousness. Most of us probably have somebody in our family like Frank.

Rex Ingram (Joe Lucasta) nukes Anna's wedding cake in this scene from Anna Lucasta (1958).

Frank is the antique dealer-son-in-law of Joe Lucasta, who can't seem to make a dime from the junk he tries to sell on the family's front lawn. And with a baby on the way, he is definitely hard up for cash. The horribleness of Frank adds brightness and comedic color in scene after scene.
Here, in this dialogue from the film, is an example of what I mean:

Frank: (to his father-in-law Joe)  "You ain't done too good by Stella, either.  I had a hard job housebreaking that woman." (his pregnant wife)

Another scene---Frank explaining his take on "democracy" to brother-in-law Stanley and to wife Stella:

 Frank:  "That ain't democracy. Democracy is all for all and one for one."

Stella: (chimes in) "And you're the one."

Frank: (sarcastically) "I was until you had to go and make it two."--(saying this as if he had nothing at all to do with his wife becoming pregnant.)

In this scene, a dinner table conversation takes place over a letter from Joe's old friend, who is sending his son Rudolph to California with plenty of money, and wants Joe to find his son a decent, God-fearing woman for a wife:

Stella: "What does that farmer think? That you can buy a woman like you buy a pig?"

Frank: "Sometimes pigs are a better buy."  

And wherever Frank went, hilarity was sure to go!

One of the unexpected surprises of this 1958 version of Anna Lucasta is the movie's theme song entitled "That's Anna". It was composed by one of Hollywood's top composers, Elmer Bernstein, and with lyrics by Sammy Cahn.  To put it simply, this song has a lilting melancholic beauty that commands encores. It is heard at the beginning of the movie sung to perfection by Sammy Davis Jr. If you love great movie themes from a time when film scores were still composed with sentiment and with heart, then this song alone is worth seeing the movie for.

The 1958 Anna Lucasta might be described as an opportunity found and an opportunity lost.   Yet it is certainly one of the most unique and significant disappointments in the history of African-American cinema. Coming perhaps too many years too late, it still radiates a curious afterglow of a bright falling star that might have shone in Hollywood many years before, as well as illuminating others to do the same. The production of this 1950's all-Black film based on the highly successful all-Black stage production, was at least an effort on the part of many involved. And in my opinion, although it is a movie with glaring imperfections, it is still a film worth watching. I understand that the film rights to Anna Lucasta have once again become available for production. If Hollywood ventures into a third remake of this drama, it will be quite interesting to see how it is cast and directed, considering the unusual history it has had.  If done, maybe the third time around will be the charm which brings to the screen all of the passion and drama which made the very first all-Black Broadway production of Philip Yordan's play such a sensation and a success!

 Dramatist/ Screenwriter Philip Yordan

Anna Lucasta trivia... Joan Crawford has brief fling with Republic cowboy star Don "Red" Barry. When he attempts to finance the play "Anna Lucasta" using Joan's name as collateral, she dumps him."

My own personal trivia and six degrees of separation... 

Rosetta LeNoire ("Stella") was also the founder and artistic director of AMAS Repertory Theatre , an artistic and interracial community theater in Manhattan, where I had the great pleasure of studying acting for a time and meeting the very kind Ms. LeNoire.  AMAS is responsible for many original productions, including the Broadway hit "Bubbling Brown Sugar" (book for show by author/playwright Loften Mitchell, who along with his sister Gladys, were also good friends of our family.)   

For Part I of my review/commentary--Hilda Simms and the Original Anna Lucasta please click here.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my review/commentary~!

Hilda Simms and the Original Anna Lucasta

Hilda Simms...

           ...the Original Anna Lucasta 
(part one)

Review/Commentary by SDGDiamondHead 

 

It was one of the most successful shows ever to hit the Broadway scene, playing to packed houses of both black and white audiences for two years. Hilda Simms, who played the principal role of Anna, along with the rest of the cast of the all-negro production of Anna Lucasta, dazzled theater-goers in this powerful drama by Philip Yordan. 

[Click image for original 1944 Playbill of Anna Lucasta.]

Anna Lucasta was an exceptional stage production not only because of it's enormous appeal to white and black audiences alike, but because the all-negro cast of this non-singing, non-dancing highly dramatic Broadway production, was highly unusual for it's time. Anna Lucasta was the first of it's kind, to star black Americans in a riveting Broadway drama--but ironically, one without a racial theme. The all-negro production of Anna Lucasta became such a popular Broadway play, that the negro touring company of Anna Lucasta also enjoyed a very long and successful three-year run. In addition, the negro London production of Anna Lucasta ran for one year. The all-negro production of Anna Lucasta continued to be such a huge success, that later, it was to inspire a Yiddish production of this drama starring famous stage actress, Molly Picon.  In a word, it was a hit!  

This hit came in a way that writer Philip Yordan could not have foreseen when he wrote his play. Philip Yordan's first draft which he named "Anna Lukaska", was a drama originally intended for white actors.  It was based on the lives of a Polish American family Yordan had personally know while growing up. However, Yordan had been unsuccessful in finding a Broadway producer interested in staging his work. His drama ultimately attracted the attention of Abram Hill, Frederick O'Neal and Austin Briggs-Hall, who were the founders of the American Negro Theatre (ANT). And with only a few changes made, Yordan modified his riviting drama to make it suitable for negro actors to perform. Then in 1944 the American Negro Theatre debuted it's all-negro production of Anna Lucasta, uptown in Harlem.

From the start it was a success. With Hilda Simms and the other principal actors, Earle Hyman (as Rudolph), Frederick O'Neal (as Frank), George Randol (as Joe), John Proctor (as Stanley), and Canada Lee (as Danny), the all-negro production of Anna Lucasta became the theatrical hit of Harlem. It soon created such a sensation, that the show finally came to the attention of Broadway producers downtown. And in only five short weeks following it's Harlem debut, Philip Yordan's electrifying drama had made its way downtown to the Mansfield Theater on Broadway, where it played for a record 957 performances.

Mansfield Theater inside

Renamed the Brooks Atkinson Theater Sept. 12, 1960

The drama is set in the Pennsylvania home of the Lucasta family and Noah's Bar in Brooklyn, early 1941.  In the lead role of Anna, Hilda Simms sizzled the stage playing a waterfront prostitute working dive joints in Brooklyn.

As the play begins, Anna's alcoholic, and religiously hypocritical father Joe Lucasta having been suddenly possessed by an unjustified hatred for his daughter, has kicked Anna out of the house on a trumped-up charge of promiscuity. Unfairly, he charged Anna with "wrong-doing" for being a young woman inclined to date young men of her own age.  This accusation, as it is later discovered, is merely a cruel cover for Joe's own personal demons that he cannot confront.  As the drama progresses, what subtlety surfaces is that the incestuously-minded Joe Lucasta has a secret--a secret that he tries in vain to drown in alcohol.  Driven further and further into guilt-ridden, alcoholic fits of rage,  Joe has forbidden Anna to come back home or for any member of the Lucasta family to even be talk about Anna in the house.  Having suddenly kicked Anna out without a dollar to her name, traumatized and despairing, Anna has fallen into a life of prostitution and over time, become friendly with a sailor named Danny, who she hopes to one day marry.  

When Joe receives a letter from an old dear friend (a farmer from back home in Alabama) informing him that his son Rudolph will be coming north loaded with cash, the table begin to turn on Joe in the Lucasta house.  It turns out that Joe's friend has a request.  And his request is that Joe find his son Rudolph a decent and God-fearing wife.  Well, it isn't long at all before Joe's conniving son-in-law Frank, together with his own son Stanley, have hatched a scheme to use poor Anna to bilk Rudolph out of the large sum of cash he will be bringing with him. 

Soon, over dinner, the Lucasta family is all abuzz discussing the possibility of Anna returning home to marry Rudolph and that money they expect to get when she does.  Hearing his family talk about Anna returning home, Joe goes into panic. He becomes violent and strikes his wife refusing to agree to it. But opportunistic, take charge Frank, browbeats Joe into "agreeing". Joe, forced by his son-in-law Frank, travels with him to Brooklyn to convince Anna to return home right away. They find her in Noah's bar and down on her luck and with only a dollar to her name.  Not aware of what her father and brother-in-law are up to,  Anna is lured back to the Lucasta house to be the unwitting bait to hook Rudolph. You see, Frank and Stanley take Rudolph to be a dumb, backwards "hayseed".  They figure it'll be easy to tempt him with Anna, and afterwards separate him from his cash.

Scenes From Anna Lucasta 

But soon after Anna returns home, their plan is spoiled when she finds out about the money, and their plan to use her as bait in her brother-in-law's scheme. The plot continues to thicken when Rudolph arrives.  

It turns out that Rudolph is not quite the "hayseed" that Frank and Stanley had counted on. They're surprised to learn that Rudolph is not only intelligent  and college educated, but he also has enough savvy to leave Frank and Stanley afraid he'll see Anna for what she is. 

 In an unexpected twist of events, while Frank and Stanley are looking for a new way to swindle Rudolph out of his money, Rudolph falls in love with Anna despite her past as a prostitute. Meanwhile, as their wedding day draws near, the incestuous, vengeful, alcoholic Joe Lucasta hatches a diabolical plot to destroy Anna's real chance at happiness and a decent life.  He is even out to destroy Rudolph. When wedding day finally arrives, Anna's one-time sailor boyfriend, Danny shows up unannounced.  Upon learning of Anna's new marriage and new husband, Danny tries to strong-arm Anna into forgetting about Rudolph and farm life, and to come away with him--back to the drinking, back to the bars and the night life.  Then all hell  breaks loose when Joe Lucasta arrives home, announces the evil thing that he has done to Rudolph and goes completely berserk! 

Hilda Simms in a scene from "Anna Lucasta"
on cover of Theater World magazine [1948]

It can be said that Anna Lucasta possesses an appeal that is timeless. More than sixty years after it's debut on Broadway and having received much critical acclaim, Philip Yordan's drama is still being brought to life in regional stage productions around the country. Without a doubt, it is the very flawed human element of the characters of this drama that lends to  it, it's continual appeal. Most people are aware that such hard to approach issues as incest and alcoholism do trouble some families. And who could not sympathize with a young woman who has been the victim of this destructive behavior? It is true that such serious problems are universal.   Issues such as the Lucasta's faced have affected all races, colors and classes. What the original Broadway cast production of Anna Lucasta did, was to bring this drama with its troubling albeit, universal theme to very receptive black and white audiences alike.  Anna Lucasta is not only a "black" drama; it is also a "white" drama...an all- race drama. And as far as dramas go, it was the first ever on Broadway to star an all-negro cast in a play that did not focus on a specific racial plot.

Over the years, Anna Lucasta has not been without it's critics though. Some blacks have criticized the original Broadway cast production as not being a true expression of blackness or of black life. Playwright August Wilson expressed concerns over color-blind casting:

"To cast black actors in 'white' plays was to cast us in the role of mimics." --playwright August Wilson

Additionally, the American Negro Theatre  which first produced Anna Lucasta uptown in Harlem, was criticized by some of undermining the black theater movement in Harlem, when it took  Anna Lucasta, to Broadway. Notwithstanding critics, however, the all-negro production of Anna Lucasta remains to this day, an important ground-breaking play and one of Broadway's all-time biggest hits. 

In what can historically be considered a sort of rarity for either stage (or film), the original 1944 production of Anna Lucasta, also brought together the seldom seen pairing of two light-skinned blacks to portray the principal romantic roles in a Broadway hit production--the roles of Anna and Rudolph. Whether casting by color actually played a role in the decision to pair Simms and Hyman (of Cosby Show fame) as romantic leads in this production is uncertain. But the use of these two light-skinned lead actors leaves open some speculation to whether or not the on-stage romantic scenes of the two together, resulted in being a curiosity to audiences of that time...audiences who may have been unused to seeing African Americans of fair complexions cast together in any type of romantic drama. By that time, Broadway-bound audiences were used to seeing light-skinned black women as sexual objects to white men or black men, but rarely to their light-skinned male counter parts. In 1945 director Jose Ferrer brought Lillian Smith's controversial (1944) novel Strange Fruit, based on an interracial love affair set in 1920's Georgia, to the footlights of Broadway.    Here, Jane White (daughter of famed civil rights activist Walter White) played the lead role of Nonnie Anderson, a college educated fair-skinned negro woman who falls in love with a southern white gentleman--a man finding himself confronted with the only way of life he's ever known and all of the social prohibitions that come with it, now struggling to find the courage to live up to his love for Nonnie.

[Strange Fruit 1945 newspaper clipping]

Earle Hyman on Jet Cover, and Hilda Simms

 
Casting by color or not, the original production of Anna Lucasta (1944-46) experienced a type of lead role casting, that has been avoided in American stage and film--where fair-skinned blacks in romantic roles are almost uniformly partnered with either distinctively white or black actors.  With the exception of Indie film-maker Oscar Micheaux and his well-known color casting and bold  use of the one drop rule, Hollywood, at least, had long demonstrated a rather keen avoidance of casting very light-skinned male and female African Americans together in romantic roles--perhaps for reasons still unclear to most.  Independent film maker, Oscar Micheaux was probably the only filmmaker of that time to routinely pair near-white black people together onscreen in romantic roles. And certainly, it can be said that in doing so, Micheaux exploited the one drop rule in ways which reportedly, at that time drew sharp emotions out of both white and black audiences. One can speculate that this tactic in the stage production of Anna Lucasta (whether done purposely or not) may have had a similar effect.

All totaled, Anna Lucasta  is to be praised for stepping outside the box and daring to be different in ways that had not been done in black theater before.  It took a different approach, stepping away from black drama with heavy racial themes and in doing so, demonstrated a different stage view of the negro theatrical experience.  Is it necessary to routinely depict the race problems of America in order for good black drama to really be good?  For 957 performances, during the Jim Crow era of the 1940's, audiences in the Mansfield theater in New York City, cried, laughed and applauded--never once having been intentionally reminded of the white and black race problems in America.  For two hours each evening, white and black theater-goers sat beside each other and enjoyed the rarified experience of collectively tuning into something other than their race. For the first time in Broadway history, Hilda Simms and the original cast of Anna Lucasta  had placed the commonality of man before the footlights, and audiences loved it. 

Other cast members of the original 1944 Broadway production cast of Anna Lucasta

  

Federick O'Neal as Frank and Rosetta LeNoire as Stella

 

                                                   Alice Childress as Blanche

Canada Lee as Danny Johnson

Alvin Childress as Noah

and Playwright Philip Yordan

What Playbill said about Anna Lucasta...

"The years 1942 and 1943 brought mostly failures to this theatre. A popular wartime comedy, "Janie," which had already played at three other theatres, moved in for a few months in 1943-44. Then, on August 30, 1944, a bonanza arrived. Anna Lucasta, a play by Philip Yordan, was first done by the American Negro Theatre in Harlem (although the playwright wrote it for white actors). It was so successful that producer John Wildberg transferred it to the Mansfield Theatre with a few changes in the script. Directed by Harry Wagstaff Gribble and superbly acted by Hilda Simms as the prostitute Anna, Canada Lee, Earle Hyman, and Frederick O'Neal, the drama ran for 957 performances."--Playbill

Please click here for part II of my review/commentary, Anna Lucasta...Anatomy of a Movie. It is a review & film commentary of the 1958 all-negro film based on Philip Yordan's famous drama starring: Eartha Kitt, Sammy Davis Jr. Frederick O'Neal and Henry Scott. 

 [Hilda Simms and the Original Anna Lucasta is a revised edition of my original review written in April 2006.--SDGDiamondHead]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanksgiving Without The Pain

Yesterday I--we spared the life of a turkey...something I'm very pleased to say.  For, at my insistence (or rather, my persistence), we went out for a Thanksgiving celebration, rather than celebrate with the usual custom of first, going on a supermarket hunt for the most suitable, feather-plucked headless gobbler we could grab--before someone else does--then bringing our utterly speechless victim home for the customary applications of culinary "beauty rubs", buttery "mud masks", glazed "foundation" and a finishing "powder" of salt & spices. 

From our restaurant booth with its wonderful view of the approaching sunset, I, for one, was perfectly content (and no less thankful) to munch my carefully prepared medium-well burger with mushrooms paired with a Cesar's salad with delicate dressing, all the while enjoying an introspective conversation with my daughter.  That and topping the evening off with a pleasant visit to the movie theater to see a viewing of J. Edgar, seemed "celebration" enough for me. All that would have made this Thanksgiving moment better as far as I'm concerned, would have been if the restaurant was somewhere in Manhattan rather than Upstate New York.  Well, maybe next Thanksgiving we'll do Manhattan.

On a certain level, I no longer view Thanksgiving with the same innocent optimism--you know, the kind I did as a kid.  Knowing how out-of-whack society can often seem, and at worse, how dangerous a place it can be for women, children, single mom, widows, orphans...the more vulnerable members of society,  for me this day of thanks isn't necessarily defined by the tantalizing splendor of a juicy turkey dinner, but rather, with whom one spends this special day with.  And perhaps more importantly,  with whom not.

 ***********************************