“Lost Boundaries” (1949) is an American film about passing for white. It stars Mel Ferrer in his first film ever. It is based on a true story.
Mel Ferrer plays Dr Scott Carter. Fresh out of medical school in 1922, he is too white for the black hospitals and too black for the white hospitals. He could simply pass for white, but is against it:
“If a Negro wants to help his race he should have to courage to stand up and say ‘I’m a Negro.'”
Besides, the truth would come out sooner or later anyway.
But when no one will hire him as a doctor, rather than waste his education and talents, he tells himself he will pass for white for just one year, to get some experience and money.
Warning: I give away the ending. If you want to watch it beforehand, it is on YouTube, an hour and 38 minutes long.
But one year quickly turns into 20. In 1942 he is the town doctor of Keenham, New Hampshire, a small town in New England that is all white. No one knows that he and his wife are passing for white – not even their two children!
Of course, the truth does catch up with him. And at the worst possible moment. With the world at war, he applies to be a navy doctor with the rank of lieutenant commander and is sworn in. As the town celebrates, marching band and all, a man from Navy intelligence shows up to ask him some questions! The Navy does not allow Negroes to become officers.
But even worse than the whole town finding out and being thrown out of the navy, he has destroyed the trust of his children.
When his son Howard, now a university student, finds out he is himself black, he does not take it well. It is like someone told him he had a terrible disease with six months to live. He looks at his hands (pictured above), his arms, his face. He breaks down and cries. He runs away – to Harlem!
In Harlem, Howard hopes to:
“find out what it’s like to be a Negro.”
He is later informed that it takes more than five days in Harlem to know what it is like to be black. Yet even from those five days it became clear to him why his father wanted to pass for white and therefore lied to him. He returns home and forgives his father.
The ending was super lame, though presumably true. The Sunday morning after the whole town found out that the doctor and his family were not white, the pastor gave a sermon, saying:
“In the light of God and of his Son who himself was the Light of the world, all men are brothers, one unto another. But how dim is this light in our time?”
And thus “rallies the humanity of the towns-folk,” as the New York Times in 1949 put it. It worked!
The end.
– Abagond, 2017.
Sources: Google Images; New York Times (1949).
See also:
- YouTube: Lost Boundaries
- Not in H.G. Wells:
- Harlem
- passing for white
- super lame
- Pinky – another 1949 film about passing
525
(not having seen the movie)
I don’t see how it’s sustainable to be known as a black person in a pre-civil rights era’s town full of white people.
Sure, that pastor gave a great sermon, but how long until his medical office would be given a wide berth by the townsfolk ? One week, perhaps two.
What about the whispers behind his back, would they even say hello to him? .. “Oh , it’s the n…ro again, walking down the street!”.
To think that one’s livelihood would be entirely dependent on the golden liberal heart of white townfolk who change on a whim by a sermon… in 1949.
That’s not lame at all. That’s the very stuff , nightmare are made of.
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The movie was based on an article in Reader’s Digest that appeared in 1947 and was expanded into a book the following year.
I haven’t been able to find the 1947 article online, but according to recent summaries of the article on Wikipedia and elsewhere (which Abagond can’t read during his sojourn in 1949), the movie took some liberties. Perhaps the biggest change was that the son didn’t run off to Harlem for five days. Instead, he took an extended trip across country to meet various relatives and was mostly in contact with middle-class black professionals.
I suspect the church scene was poetic license, although at the moment that’s just a guess. Apparently, according to later accounts by family members, it is true that most of the townspeople didn’t react negatively. On the other hand, in 1953 Jet reported that the doctor had been fired from his hospital and that he was convinced it was because of his race. He said they’d been picking on him ever since the movie came out. Eventually the family moved to Hawaii.
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“…his son Howard, now a university student, finds out he is himself black, he does not take it well. It is like someone told him he had a terrible disease with six months to live. He looks at his hands… his arms, his face. He breaks down and cries.”
One drop rule silliness.
I recently saw a genetic testing television commercial over the course of weeks where the woman touting the service blathered on and on about her Native American heritage. She talked about how it was such a profound discovery and how learning about her genetic makeup changed her life.
What I found interesting is the pie chart that flashed in the beginning of the commercial listed her genetic heritage inputs by continent. They were approximately 25% Americas (Native American), 15% Africa and the rest Europe with a tiny sliver for Asia.
I chuckled when I thought about the numbers of people in this country who would totally discount her celebrated Native American ancestry and her obvious European ancestry if they were aware of her “one drop” (okay, a few drops) of African ancestry.
Instead, she (and the genetic testing company chose to focus a 30 second commercial) on the Native ancestry that she felt made her special. At the same time she ignores her paycheck (European) ancestry and submerges the shameful (African) ancestry.
I’ve seen far too many European Americans pull that stunt in real life. Treating their Native American identities like a cafeteria. They pull all of the delicious dishes onto their trays while passing over the unappetizing dishes that full time Native Americans are forced to swallow everyday. If there is an African dish on the line, they will go to another cafeteria altogether.
So from my perspective, those attitudes are still present in this country nearly seventy years removed from 1949.
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Movies like this one and Pinky make me think more about how Northern whites perceived themselves, as something entirely different from the white southerner.
I wonder if they could make any movies in 1949 from the white southerner perspective. Would that offend northern sensibilities?
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That movie should be labelled a comedy.
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