The Evolution of Carmen

Carmen Jones is a 1954 musical film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. An adaptation of the 1943 Broadway musical of the same name, Carmen Jones is a retelling of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen set during World War II with an all African-American cast. The film stars Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Olga James, and Joe Adams, also featuring Brock Peters (his film debut), Roy Glenn, Nick Stewart, and Diahann Carroll (her film debut). Despite Miss Dandridge's singing career, she is not the Operatic Mezzo-Soprano the music calls for, and her voice was dubbed by the very young Marilyn Horne in her first high-profile job. Belafonte and Adams were also dubbed.

The film was a critical and commercial success, and proved to be a major star-making vehicle for Dorothy Dandridge, who portrayed the title character. Carmen Jones won the 1955 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and was nominated for two Academy Awards. Dandridge, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, was the first African-American so honored. The film was also entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.

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".

Carmen: A Hip Hopera is a 2001 musical film produced for television by MTV and directed by Robert Townsend. The film stars Beyoncé Knowles, Mos Def, Rah Digga, Wyclef Jean, Mekhi Phifer, Da Brat, Joy Bryant, Jermaine Dupri and Lil' Bow Wow. It is based upon Georges Bizet's opera, Carmen, set in Philadelphia and Los Angeles in modern times, and features a mostly original hip-hop/R&B score in place of Bizet's opera. The movie received mainly negative reviews. To date, it is the second major attempt at an African-American adaptation of the opera. -Wikipedia

These two movies as well as numerous other film adaptations were inspired by Carmen the French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies (1824) by Alexander Pushkin. The opera premiered at the Opéra-Comique of Paris on 3 March 1875, but its opening run was denounced by the majority of critics. -Wikipedia

The Evolution of Carmen

The Big Lift starring Montgomery Clift | Free Movie

The Big Lift is a 1950 film that was shot on location in the city of Berlin, Germany, and tells the story of two Air Force sergeants (played by Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas) who meet and fall in love with two women in Berlin during the 1948/1949 Berlin Air Lift.
The film was directed and written by George Seaton, and was released April 26, 1950, less than one year after the Soviet blockade of Berlin was lifted and the air lift operations ceased. Because the film was shot in Berlin in 1949, it provides a unique glimpse of the post-war state of the city as it struggles to recover from the devastation wrought by World War II. Wikipedia

Filmed on location, The Big Lift is a reenactment of the Berlin airlift of 1948. Flexing their postwar muscles, the Russians blockade the Western sector, refusing to allow the Allies to ship supplies to the starving Berliners. From their headquarters at Templehof Airport, a group of courageous American flyers risk their lives to transport supplies by air. Internet Archives

Do you see Montgomery Clift in Tom Cruise?

Watching The Big Lift on TCM...for just a moment I could see Tom Cruise in Montgomery Clift's bashful upward glance and sly crooked smile.