Carmen Jones is a 1954 American musical film featuring an African-American cast starring Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, and Pearl Bailey and 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 and DeLuxe Color motion picture that had begun shooting within the first 12 months of Twentieth Century Fox's venture in 1953 to the widescreen format 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. The film received two Academy Awards nominations, including Best Actress for Dandridge, making her the first black nominee in that category.
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".
Plot Set during World War II, the story focuses on Carmen Jones, a "shameless 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.
Joe plans to deliver his prisoner as soon as possible to return to Cindy Lou and his leave. While en route, 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 on a train to Chicago with Carmen.
Tired of being cooped up in a shabby rented room, Carmen gets dressed and leaves under the guise of buying groceries. Since he can't leave the room at all lest he be arrested, Joe questions her. Carmen becomes annoyed and tells him that she does what she wants. Carmen goes to Husky Miller's gym to ask Frankie for a loan, saying that although she has clothes, furs and diamonds, she has no actual cash. Frankie tries to convince Carmen to sit in Husky's corner so they all can be well taken care of, but Carmen is in love and refuses to double time Joe. Husky believes she is back to finally be with him, but she refuses his advances before leaving, so he tells his entire entourage that they are cut off financially until they produce Carmen (whom he nicknames Heatwave). Carmen pawns a piece of jewelry so she can buy groceries before returning to the room. When she returns not only with a bag of groceries but a new dress and shoes, Joe questions how she paid for them. Offended that he is accusing her of cheating, she argues with him and goes to Husky's hotel suite dressed in her new clothes to spend time with her friends. Frankie begins to tell fortunes by drawing cards. Carmen takes it all lightly until she draws the nine of spades. She interprets it as a premonition of her impending death and chooses to enjoy the rest of her life no matter how long it is.
Cindy Lou arrives at Husky's gym in search of Carmen since she is the only one who knows where Joe is. Frankie tells her to give up on Joe because he is nothing but trouble. An angry Joe arrives, having evaded capture and intent on getting Carmen back. Although Cindy Lou is present, he ignores her while ordering Carmen to leave with him. Husky intervenes and he is threatened by a concealed knife Joe has brought with him. Husky's people try to get him to stand down due to his fighting prowess, but can't since Joe won't stop. Joe is hit with a few blows before Carmen helps him get away. Joe asks why if she no longer loves him, but she reveals it's because she can't bear to see anyone cooped up. She tells Cindy Lou to go home and find someone worthy of her. After leaving, Cindy Lou tells herself how silly it is trying to save a man who not only doesn't love her but has left her for another woman.
Joe escapes the Military Police and attends Husky's big fight. Dressed to the nines, Carmen, her friends and Husky's entourage escort Husky to the ring. He falters in the first round, but comes back to beat his opponent in the second. Husky runs to Carmen's loving arms after winning, but they are parted after he is put up on his entourage's shoulders. Joe grabs Carmen as she is following Husky to his dressing room and pulls her into a storage room, where he begs her to return to him. Angry that she has moved on, he claims he should have killed her. In a matter-of-fact manner, she tells him that what they had is over and there is no going back for them. When Carmen continues to rebuff him and says he needs to kill her or let her go, Joe strangles her to death. A janitor finds him as he goes to alert the military police. He realizes he is now going to die for committing murder.
Cast Dorothy Dandridge as Carmen Jones, who pursues Joe because he alone ignores her; her singing voice is dubbed by Marilyn Horne Harry Belafonte as Joe, a soldier selected for flight school; his singing voice is dubbed by LeVern Hutcherson Pearl Bailey as Frankie, one of Carmen's best friends Olga James as Cindy Lou, a young woman who loves Joe—and whom Joe loves until he falls in love with Carmen Joe Adams as "Husky" Miller, contender for heavyweight boxing champion of the world and pursuer of Carmen; his singing voice is dubbed by Marvin Hayes Brock Peters as Sergeant Brown, who, in his envy of golden "fly boy" Joe, tells Cindy Lou that Joe volunteered to take Carmen to jail, when in reality Brown had given him no choice. He also forces Joe into a fight, leaving him to face a 4-plus-year jail sentence or run away. Roy Glenn as "Rum" Daniels, Husky's manager; his singing voice is dubbed by costar Brock Peters Nick Stewart as "Dink" Franklin, Rum Daniels' 'manager'; his singing voice is dubbed by Joe Crawford Diahann Carroll as Myrtle "Myrt", another close friend of Carmen; her singing voice is dubbed by Bernice Peterson
Production The Broadway production of Carmen Jones by Billy Rose opened on December 2, 1943, and ran for 503 performances.Carmen Jones at the Internet Broadway Database. 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,"Preminger, Otto, Preminger: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday, 1977. , p. 133. so he decided to return to the original source material—the Prosper Mérimée novella. He 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.Hirsch, Foster, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. , p. 211.
Preminger realized no major studio would be interested in financing an operatic film with an all-African-American cast, so he decided to produce it independently. He anticipated United Artists executives Arthur B. Krim and Robert S. Benjamin, who had supported him in his censorship battles with The Moon Is Blue, would be willing to invest in the project, but the two felt it was not economically viable and declined.Preminger, p. 134. Following the completion of his previous film, River of No Return, Preminger had paid 20th Century Fox $150,000 to cancel the remainder of his contract.Hirsch, p. 207.Preminger, p. 132. He was surprised when Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck contacted him and offered to finance the new film while allowing him to operate as a fully independent filmmaker. In December 1953, he accepted $750,000 and began what became a prolonged pre-production period. He hired cinematographer Sam Leavitt as director of photography, Herschel Burke Gilbert as musical director, and Herbert Ross as choreographer and began to scout locations.Hirsch, p. 212.
On April 14, 1954, six weeks before principal photography was scheduled to begin, Preminger was contacted by Joseph Breen, who was in the final months of his leadership of the office of the Motion Picture Production Code. Breen had clashed with Preminger over The Moon Is Blue and still resented the director's success in releasing that film without a seal of approval. He cited the "over-emphasis on lustfulness" in Carmen Jones and was outraged by the screenplay's failure to include "any voice of morality properly condemning Carmen's complete lack of morals."Bogle, Donald, Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography. New York: Amistad, 1997. , p. 266. Preminger agreed to make some minor adjustments to the script and even filmed two versions of scenes Breen found objectionable, although he included the more controversial ones in the final film.Hirsch, pp. 212–213.
Because he was sensitive to the issue of racial representation in the film, Preminger had no objections when Zanuck urged him to submit the script to Walter Francis White, executive secretary of the NAACP. White had no objection to it.Bogle, p. 268.
Preminger began to assemble his cast. Harry Belafonte, a folk singer who recently had introduced calypso music to a mainstream audience, had only one film to his credit. But he had just won the Tony Award and Theatre World Award for his performance in John Murray Anderson's Almanac, and Preminger cast him as Joe. Pearl Bailey's sole screen credit was the 1948 film Isn't It Romantic?, but she had achieved success as a band singer and was familiar to television audiences from her appearances on Your Show of Shows, so she was cast as Frankie. Joe Adams was a Los Angeles disc jockey with no acting experience, but Preminger felt he had the right look for Husky.Hirsch, p. 213. Diahann Carroll auditioned for the title role, but she was so terrified of the director she could barely focus on the scene,Carroll, Diahann with Firestone, Ross, Diahann: An Autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1986. , p. 50. and Preminger cast her in the small supporting role of Myrt instead. Finally, numerous African-American actresses, from Eartha Kitt to Joyce Bryant, were tested for the role of Carmen.