Main Cast: James Whitmore, Sorrell Booke, Al Freeman, Jr., Roscoe Lee Browne
Release Year: 1964
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
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, All Movie Guide
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
