Customer Reviews

Lost Boundaries [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The movie reeks of a certain kind of social realism that would later, in the 1950s, bloom into such "classics" as REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, THE WILD ONE, etc, but LOST BOUNDARIES fascinates because of its race theme and the way n which it employs white actors to pass as black, even while the characters are black passing for white. Alfred Werker, the director, brings a Hawthornean sense of pain and desolation to the New England scenes, which are scary precisely because they're all set in Greek Revival style churches and private houses, very upper middle class, and yet they look like whitened sepulchres, for everything's white without a drop of color, as though some Puritan or Shaker influence from hundreds of years past had interdicted even the slightest shade of color. Mel Ferrer and Beatrice Pearson are splendid in the parts of the older Carters, Scott and Marcia, the ones who decide to marry because (amng other things) each has exactly the same quotient of black and white blood, although in the secondhalf of the movie, when they are supposed to be grown up with teen children of their own, it's a little ridiculous, and Beatrice Pearson in particular still looks around 14, though bravely the actress agreed to wear what must have been some heavy padding around her hips and waist to make her seem "matronly."

Susan Douglas, as her teen daughter Shelley, has a sad face even when she's happy, and when she's sad, misery has no word for it! The scene where Carleton Carpenter, as her white boyfriend "Andy," stops her as she walks across the bridge where he's fishing, is astonishing: both actors play it with immense conviction, and at the end, when Carpenter can't understand why Douglas won't be going to the dance with him any more, it's heartbreaking: he's so sweet you'd think he was retarded. (Maybe he's supposed to be?) It seemed to me that in all the town of Keenham, there was one soul who didn't have a racist bone in his body--thus the town was saved, a la Sodom and Gomorrah?

Richard Hylton, who plays the teen son who comes to find that his family's been living a lie, is also good. He's like a Dean Stockwell type totally enchanted with his own image (we see him narcissistically examining himself in a mirror, then the mirror turns dark around the edges as he realizes that the beauty he has so admired is that of a "Negro"). He runs off to New York, to what looks like some fascinating actual location footage of Harlem, and there gets mixed up in a gun battle between two rival guys who are trying to kill each other. Happily, Canada Lee is on the case--the great Canada Lee, perhaps the finest actor of the entire piece.

Some of the dialogue is overwritten, some of it seems to be missing, as though the actors were given blank pages and the directions, "Act with your eyes," but the daring of the movie is still very much tangible after nearly 60 years. You could sink your teeth and bite into it. I can't imagine how Hollywood could actually have made this movie. Every note, even the false ones, is perfect.

Lost Boundaries is a great black american classic movie. I would recommend this movie to anyone that would like to see a wonderful family deal with racisim in the early 1920's in New Hampshire. I purchased two so one could be given as a Birthday gift to my sister.
Just a wonderful film and a joy to see how people really can over come some of this countries race problems.

Just watched on TCM and I'm ordering...very contemporary piece for its time, and deals with 'passing' as an everyday occurrence. Loved this movie.

I too just saw this movie today as well on TCM. It was an excellent movie. I can't wait to own such a terrific classic!!!

I learned of this while on an African-American Historical tour in NH. I didn't know that they had real history there. I immediately purchased this film and watched it. Even though this story took place many decades ago, the story is still real today. Folks are passing to "mask" who they really are. I plan to share it during our weekly movie matinee during Black History Month. I recommend this if you like history and black and white films.