Plot

Black Like Me is the true story of white journalist John Howard Griffin, who "became" a Negro in the late 1950s. Feeling that the best way to understand what it was like to be black in a segregated south was to experience the feeling first-hand, Griffin (James Whitmore) undergoes extensive-and sometimes painful-skin pigmentation treatments. Though he tends to look more like Al Jolson or Eddie Cantor rather than African American, Whitmore does a creditable job playing a proud man forced into subservience by an unfeeling white society. Unfortunately, the film falls prey to stylistic affectations, notably an overabundance of confusing flashbacks. Though dating and occasionally patronizing, Black Like Me is still a worthwhile effort. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Cast

• James Whitmore - John Finley Horton
• Sorrell Booke - Dr.Jackson
• Al Freeman, Jr. - Tom Newcomb
• Roscoe Lee Browne - Christopher

Clifton James - Eli Carr; Dan Priest - Bus Driver; Walter Mason - Mason; John Marriott - Hodges; Lenka Peterson - Lucy Horton; Richard Ward - Burt Wilson; Llewellyn B. Skinner - Stretch; Raymond St. Jacques; Will Geer

Credit

Carl Lerner - Director, Lora Hayes - Editor, Meyer Kupferman - Composer (Music Score), Victor Lukens - Cinematographer, Henry Mueller II - Cinematographer, Jules Tannebaum - Producer, Carl Lerner - Screenwriter, Gera Lerner - Screenwriter, John Howard Griffin - Book Author

Previous:	Black Lights, White Shadows (1989 Film), Black Lightning (2009 Film)
Next:	Black Limelight (1938 Film), Black List (1978 Film)