A Raisin in the Sun (1961)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Best movie ever!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

When you rent A Raisin in the Sun, get ready for some seriously intense acting and a beautiful script. Usually, when a film is made of a play, one or two members of the Broadway cast are used, and the rest is filled with Hollywood names. In Daniel Petrie's adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's play, almost everyone in the 1959 original Broadway cast reprised their roles on film. And, while Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil, as well as the direction and play itself, were nominated for Tonys, the film was universally ignored at the Oscars.In a small apartment that doesn't even have a bathroom, there lives the widowed Claudia McNeil, her son Sidney Poitier, her daughter Diana Sands, and Sidney's wife Ruby Dee. They're all dissatisfied with their lives, but each family member deals with their disappointment and frustration in different ways. Sidney throws his heart into untrustworthy schemes, Diana is studying to become a doctor to better herself, Ruby keeps her head down as she tries to get through each day, and Claudia tries to continue mothering her grown children.Unlike most plays, A Raisin in the Sun isn't overly wordy, and not a single moment is boring. It's terribly sad, but still a bit optimistic at times, and very thought-provoking. Perhaps my favorite element, besides the superbly heart-wrenching performances of Sidney and Claudia, is the character development in the script. Every single person in the story is three-dimensional, and no one is a villain or a saint. Audiences can understand their thought-processes and motivations, and it's nearly impossible to choose a favorite character. Depending on how well you handle sad stories, this might be a staple you add to your collection, or it might be a film you watch only once but remember forever.

I watched this today, and was so impressed I had to share my thoughts on it. Firstly, I love Poitier, and own many of his films from his incredible run of the 60's. He may have won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field, but I always thought he was better in quite a few other movies, and now this one joins them. In fact, I think in this film he was much, much better. And it's also interesting in that Walter Lee is a flawed character, in some ways. In some other movies Poitier's almost too perfect. The supporting cast are incredible too. Claudia McNeil should have at least received a nomination for best supporting actress, And Ruby Dee... I can't get over how young and pretty she is, having only ever seen her playing mothers and grandmas up to now. Watching this, I kept thinking of another play turned movie, A Streetcar Named Desire. While Raisin is no Streetcar, it is a similarly powerful, moving piece of work and acting masterclass.

A Raisin in the Sun is a wonderful movie about a poor black family trying to achieve the American dream. The odd thing, probably something that speaks to the heart of African American audiences, is that this family has been in the country for six generations and still doesn't have anything to show for it because of racism in the country. The movie is full of deep well made characters, each with internal conflicts, who are all having conflicts with each other. The movie is essentially about politics within a family household, who is the leader and has the power, and who gets to decide what is best for the family. Each of the characters seem to have their own personal agenda and there is conflict between the characters that exist outside of the squabble for the $10,000. The film manages depicts the many avenues that the family members (and African Americans in that era) are trying to explore to escape poverty to achieve a better future. This film taught me something new, every time a different character enters a scene a new scene begins. The scene takes on a different tone and adds a new conflict to drive the scene without changing the setting or time, it's done just by introducing a different character through the door. Ultimately the film was wonderful but I felt some of the end scenes dragged on a little too long and kept me waiting too long for the final resolution. The last scenes leading up to Walter's final decision weren't filled with tension or conflict like the previous scenes, it was literally them just waiting and sobbing, something that could of been cut down. Still this is a great film that is a must see for any up and coming screen writer, I highly recommend it.

The tragically brief life of Lorraine Hansberry yielded a few literary gems among them A Raisin In The Sun, the first play on Broadway ever written by a black woman. Although Hansberry's childhood was a great deal more middle class than that of the Younger family who is the subject of the play, she captures the black urban experience of the civil rights era brilliantly. Some of the things written in A Raisin In The Sun were experienced by Hansberry personally, most particularly her own family's struggle to move into the white suburbs.Columbia Pictures had the good sense to hire Lorraine Hansberry to write the screenplay and convert her play which all takes place in the Younger family apartment in the south side of Chicago for the screen. There are a few brief scenes added outside the apartment. But what really holds the interest is the dialog between the four main characters in the apartment. It's a lot like Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night with souls laid bare. The apartment itself almost becomes a character, a home but also the symbol of a kind of prison the Youngers want to break out of.The four main characters are Walter Younger, Jr., his wife Ruth, his sister Berneatha, and mother Lena, played by Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, and Claudia McNeil respectively who all came over from Broadway. Through McNeil's performance particularly, but the others as well, the family patriarch Walter Younger also comes alive. What has happened is that he has recently died and the family is awaiting a $10,000.00 insurance check, courtesy of his years of service with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first primarily black union to organize in the USA. Poitier is working as a chauffeur, both Dee and McNeil work and have worked as domestics, Sands is a young college student with the ideas of her time, but she's also been spoiled a whole lot. Each has their own idea of what to do with the insurance money. The conflict and what eventually does happen divides and then unites the family in the end.A Raisin In The Sun ran for 530 performances on Broadway during the 1959-60 season and earned a flock of Tony Award nominations including Best Actor for Poitier and Best Actress for McNeil. Coming out as it did during the Civil Rights era it was as timely a literary masterpiece as there ever was. When it concluded its Broadway run, film production with just about the entire cast from Broadway commenced.A couple of other players who would make their marks later on were in A Raisin In The Sun. Lou Gossett, Jr. years before his Oscar plays a young and naive college kid who is interested in Sands. But she's far more interested in Ivan Dixon who is from Nigeria way before he joined the cast of Hogan's Heroes. Though it is firmly set in the times it was written in, as drama A Raisin In The Sun is positively eternal. It's as flawless a transfer from stage to film as you'll ever see.