DIRTY GERTIE FROM HARLEM U.S.A. (1946)

On the Caribbean island of Rinidad (not Trinidad but Rinidad), nightclub owner Diamond Joe has prepared a big welcome at the Paradise Hotel for Gertie La Rue, a big name stripper from Harlem. She’s brought her troupe with her to perform at the Diamond Palace though they all wish they were back in Harlem. Gertie has done her man Al wrong and the fact that he has threatened to kill her is what has brought them to Rinidad. She immediately attracts the attention of two sailors she calls High Pockets and Tight Pants who accompany her all over the island and stay up until 5 in the morning in her company. She also attracts the attention of two missionaries, Jonathan Christian and his young companion Ezra. Christian, with single-minded zeal, calls her a "painted trollop" and a Jezebel, though she gets her own back by calling him a "dirty psalm-singing polecat." Christian insists she either reform or leave the island, though Ezra is more interested in actually seeing her show. The piano player at the Diamond Palace seems to know her from somewhere, and she gets spooked when she hears him play a slow low-key tune. (This is a plot point that goes nowhere.) Gertie tells her pals that she could have Christian if she set her mind to it. (This also goes nowhere.) When a voodoo fortune teller sees only darkness in Gertie's future, she's understandably nervous. Her opening performance is disrupted by Christian, but an even bigger problem awaits later up in her room. 

This low-budget race film (made by Black filmmakers and actors) came near the end of that genre's cycle and has been called the first race film to approach the quality of a mainstream Hollywood B-movie. I'm not sure I'd go that far; it looks a little better in terms of sets and costumes but the writing and acting hamper the overall effectiveness of the project. Francine Everett (pictured) doesn't have the charisma or talent to really hold the screen, but she's OK in the lead. She was a dancer in offscreen life but only gets to do a minute of that here. Most of the other actors come off a little better. Walter Hawkins has a minor Denzel Washington vibe as Christian and David Boykin brings a bright energy to the part of Ezra whom I suspect won't be in the missionary business for long. I liked Hugh Watson as Tight Pants (whose sailor pants are, in fact, not tight at all) and Don Wilson as Diamond Joe. The director, Spencer Williams, dons drag to play the fortune teller, but he speaks in a masculine voice and has a mustache, and I was unsure of what to make of that. It might be a reference to transgender traditions among Caribbean voodoo practitioners, or it might be that Williams stepped in on short notice when the original actor bowed out. This is loosely and unofficially based on Somerset Maugham’s "Rain," the famous story of the prostitute Sadie Thompson and her tropical run-in with a preacher, except Gertie, though definitely a good-time girl, doesn't seem to be selling her wares. We never find out how Gertie did Al wrong, or how the piano player knows her, though we can make guesses in both cases. Gertie's fate is also quite different from Sadie's. The pianist's name is Larry but he is almost always referred to as Blues in the Night, a song that plays at the climax. Rather than see Francine Everett dance, we see a couple of specialty dancers who come off like low-rent Nicholas Brothers. For as much as there is wrong with this movie, I was entertained and never bored. [Criterion Channel]