Tamango
Directed by John Berry
Viewed at the San Francisco
International Film Festival


A view along a beautiful, a long stretch of shimmering white sand, a splendid 3 mast sailing ship anchored in a small inlet....waves licking at the edge, gulls screeching over the sound of the groans. We pull back, to get a wide angle look...a long procession of Africans in chains, being driven towards the ship. Once aboard a tribal chieftain is negotiating with the white captain for this breathing cargo, guns and liquor...
Among the prisoners now chained below deck, Tamango, a lion hunter, is one of only six warriors among this tribe of farmers. He cannot be in chains and begins plotting their escape.
Though this film is really much more that a slave revolt: partly about director John Berry's fight and exile from McCarthy era America and mostly about the life of the talented and stunningly beautiful black singer Dorothy Dandridge. Playing the White captain's "personal slave", caught between the white and black worlds, as she was in her real life.
So give me liberty or give me death, but let me watch John Berry's guttsy film!

Filmography

John Berry (b. New York, 1917)

Reviewed by Eric Michel, FilmCities

Photo

Country: France
Year: 1957
Running Time: 98 Min.
Producer:

Cast
Dorothy Dandridge, Curt Jurgens, Jean Servais, Alex Cressan

Editor: Roger Dwyer
Camera: Edmond Sechan
Screenwriter: Lee Gold, Tamara Hovey, John Berry