Carmen Jones (film)
Directed by Otto Preminger
Produced by Otto Preminger
Written by Harry Kleiner
Based on a lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II
Starring Harry Belafonte
Dorothy Dandridge
Pearl Bailey
Olga James
Joe Adams
Music by Georges Bizet
Carmen Jones is a 1954 American musical film starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte, produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Harry Kleiner is based on the lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II, from the 1943 stage musical of the same name, set to the music of Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen. The opera was an adaptation of the 1845 Prosper Mérimée novella Carmen by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.
Carmen Jones was a CinemaScope motion picture that had begun shooting within the first 12 months of Twentieth Century Fox’s venture in 1953 to CinemaScope Technicolor as its main production mode. Carmen Jones was released in October 1954, exactly one year and one month after Fox’s first CinemaScope venture, the Biblical epic The Robe, had opened in theatres.
In 1992, Carmen Jones was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Set during World War II, the story focuses on Carmen Jones, a vixen who works in a parachute factory in North Carolina. When she is arrested for fighting with a co-worker who reported her for arriving late for work, the leader of the Army guards, Sgt. Brown assigns handsome Corporal Joe to deliver her to the civilian authorities over 50 miles away. This is much to the dismay of Joe’s fiancée Cindy Lou, who had agreed to marry him during his leave prior to his reporting for flight school and an eventual officer’s commission.
While en route, Joe wishes to deliver his prisoner as soon as possible to return to his leave. He decides to save time by taking his jeep over a road warned unsuitable for motor vehicles that is half the distance to the town where he is taking Carmen. Carmen suggests she and Joe stop for a meal and a little romance, and his refusal intensifies her determination to seduce him. Their army jeep ends up hopelessly stuck in a river. Carmen suggests they spend the night at her grandmother’s house nearby and continue their journey by train the following day, and that night Joe succumbs to Carmen’s advances. The next morning he awakens to find a note in which she says although she loves him she is unable to deal with time in jail and is running away.
Joe is demoted to private and locked in the stockade for allowing his prisoner to escape. Cindy Lou arrives for a visit just as a rose from Carmen is delivered to him, prompting her to leave abruptly. Having found work in a Louisiana nightclub, Carmen awaits his release. One night champion prizefighter Husky Miller enters with an entourage and introduces himself to Carmen, who expresses no interest in him. Husky orders his manager Rum Daniels to offer her jewelry, furs, and an expensive hotel suite if she and her friends Frankie and Myrt accompany him to Chicago, but she declines the offer. Just then, Joe arrives and announces he must report to flying school immediately. Angered, Carmen decides to leave with Sgt. Brown, who also has appeared on the scene, and Joe severely beats him. Realizing he will be sentenced to a long prison term for hitting his superior, Joe flees to Chicago with Carmen.
While Joe remains hidden in a shabby rented room, Carmen secretly visits Husky’s gym to ask Frankie for a loan, but she insists she has no money of her own. Carmen returns to the boarding house with a bag of groceries, and Joe questions how she paid for them. The two argue, and she goes to Husky’s hotel suite to play cards with her friends. When she draws the nine of spades, she interprets it as a premonition of impending doom and descends into a quagmire of drink and debauchery.
Cindy Lou arrives at Husky’s gym in search of Carmen just before Joe appears. Ignoring his former sweetheart, he orders Carmen to leave with him and threatens Husky with a knife when he tries to intervene. Carmen helps Joe escape the military police, but during Husky’s big fight, after he wins the match, Joe finds Carmen in the crowd and pulls her into a storage room, where he begs her to return to him. When she rebuffs him, Joe strangles Carmen to death just before the military police arrive to apprehend him for desertion.
The Broadway production of Carmen Jones by Billy Rose opened on December 2, 1943 and ran for 503 performances. When he saw it, Otto Preminger dismissed it as a series of “skits loosely based on the opera” with a score “simplified and changed so that the performers who had no operatic training could sing it.” In adapting it for the screen, he wanted to make “a dramatic film with music rather than a conventional film musical,” so he decided to return to the original source material – the Prosper Mérimée novella – and hired Harry Kleiner, whom he had taught at Yale University, to expand the story beyond the limitations imposed upon it by the Bizet opera and Hammerstein’s interpretation of it.
Cast
Dorothy Dandridge ….. smoldering Carmen Jones, who pursues Joe because he alone ignores her; her singing voice is dubbed by Marilyn Horne
Harry Belafonte ….. Joe, a promising soldier, selected for flight school; his singing voice is dubbed by LeVern Hutcherson
Pearl Bailey ….. Frankie, one of Carmen’s best friends
Olga James ….. Cindy Lou, an innocent young woman who loves Joe—and whom Joe loves until Carmen seduces him
Joe Adams ….. Husky Miller, contender for heavyweight boxing champion of the world and pursuer of Carmen; his singing voice is dubbed by Marvin Hayes
Brock Peters ….. Sergeant Brown, who, in his envy of golden “fly boy” Joe, forces him to escort Carmen to jail against Joe’s will and so facilitates the seduction that proves to be the ruin of Joe
Roy Glenn ….. Rum Daniels, Husky’s manager
Diahann Carroll ….. Myrt, another close friend of Carmen’s; her singing voice is dubbed by Bernice Peterson
Song list
“Send Them Along” ….. Chorus
“Lift ‘Em Up an’ Put ‘Em Down” ….. Children’s Chorus
“Dat Love” (“Habanera”) ….. Carmen
“You Talk Jus’ Like My Maw” ….. Joe and Cindy Lou
“You Go For Me” ….. Carmen (Note: This song is the shortest reprise of “That’s Love” in the soundtrack.)
“Carmen Jones is Going to Jail” ….. Chorus
“There’s a Cafe on the Corner (“Séguedille”) ….. Carmen
“Dis Flower (“Flower Song”) ….. Joe
“Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum (“Gypsy Song”) ….. Frankie
“Stan’ Up an’ Fight (“Toreador Song”) ….. Husky Miller
“Whizzin’ Away Along de Track (“Quintet”) ….. Carmen, Frankie, Myrt, Dink, and Rum
“There’s a Man I’m Crazy For” ….. Carmen, Frankie, Mert, Rum, and Dink
“Card Song” ….. Carmen, Frankie, and Chorus
“My Joe (“Micaëla’s Prayer”) ….. Cindy Lou
“He Got His Self Another Woman” ….. Cindy Lou
“Final Duet” ….. Carmen and Joe
“String Me High on a Tree” ….. Joe
Note: After the intro of the “Gypsy Song”, there is a drum solo played by a drummer named Max and as the crowd hears it, they yell, “Go, Max!” The drummer is jazz percussionist Max Roach.
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