In the late 1950s Sidney Portier and Harry Belafonte were running neck in neck in popularity as black actors.In 1959 Belafonte made two movies portraying strong black men.He did not make another movie until 1970.During this same period of time Sidney Portier became a superstar. What was the public response to this movie ?Did it harm his movie career?
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shareI strongly doubt if "The World the Flesh and the Devil" had much of an effect on Harry Belafonte's' career. He had already been cast, opposite Joan Fountain, in "Island in the Sun" (1957); a more realistic interracial romance story of sorts.
The real issue was the inability, during the fifties and sixties, of the Hollywood studio system to make enough dramatic black themed films to support more then one black male lead. Also cultural changes may of played a role.
The conservative fifties were very much Belafonte's decade. His light complexion and West Indian accent made him seem more acceptable to white audiences. African American audiences like him in all black films like "Carmen Jones" and "The Bright Road", While he played strong black character in films like "Odds Against Tomorrow" he was limited by the material available to black actors. It wasn't to surprising he decided to hang up his acting career for a while.
The sixties, with the civil rights movement,the Vietnam War, urban unrest,the counter culture and more open minded movie audiences was anything but conservative. It was the perfect decade for Sidney Poitier.
While Poitier, like Belafonte, was from a West Indian background, it wasn't as obvious. He was very good at playing urban African American characters from the start, in movies like "No Way Out and "The Black Board Jungle". He also took on Southern racism, early on, in "The Defiant Ones". All of this helped him to develope a hard nosed persona that helped develop his characters in films like "The Heat of the Night" and "Guess who's Coming to Dinner". He was also insistingly black which was a plus in the "black is beautiful" era.
During the seventies the studio system all but came to the end along with the idea of a DNA: "designated Negro Actor".
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
I think it had a lot more to do with his mediocre acting skills. He wasn't BAD, just nowhere near the serious acting chops of, for example, Sidney Poitier.
Lack of appropriate leading roles for Blacks certainly was a factor, but studios could certainly have found, or adapted, the parts if they were faced with a powerful, talented Black actor with real stage "presence." In Poitier you have that ... in Belafonte, sadly, no.
Belafonte did drift in and out of acting. He had a strong music career and was particular about roles. It's sad he wasn't offered more quality roles. He was such a strong force in The World the Flesh and the Devil I can't see it having a negative affect on his career. Racists film goers might have been uncomfortable with a strong black character but by the 60s that became less and less of an issue not more. Portier was a more commanding actor so he did tend to get offered the better roles. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In The Heat Of The Night were ground breaking but no more so than The World the Flesh and the Devil.
shareBelafonte drifted away from films because he wasn't all that interested in them. He was primarily a singer and preferred that as the main focus of his career. He certainly could have continued acting in the 60s had he wanted to. Even in the 50s he made only five films.
It's true he was not as good an actor as Sidney Poitier, but then most actors weren't as good as Poitier. The two men were -- are -- in fact close friends, and later acted together in the 70s in Buck and the Preacher and Uptown Saturday Night, both of which Poitier also directed. Poitier's career focus was on acting and movies, and that plus his immense talent is what caused him to appear in so many films and become so popular with audiences and honored by his profession. Belafonte's focus was on singing, where he also excelled, in the 50s, 60s and beyond.
I was amused by an earlier poster who said that Belafonte was more popular in and suited to the 50s because they were a more "conservative" time than the 60s, when Poitier did so well. Harry Belafonte was wildly popular because of his voice but he was hardly a "conservative", in the 1950s or anytime since. In fact, Belafonte is very "left-wing" in his beliefs (not just on racial matters), while Poitier, equally committed of course to civil rights and liberal causes and anything but a conservative, is somewhat more restrained in his public persona, though his political beliefs are virtually identical to Belafonte's. Poitier's career was already taking off when Belafonte put his film career on hold at the end of the 50s, and he hit it big in the 60s because he was out there acting in many kinds of films and becoming a major box-office attraction. The temper of the times certainly allowed him to thrive in ways black performers could not in Hollywood prior to the late 50s, but to suggest that Belafonte was more in sync with the 50s but not the 60s is ridiculous.