Take a Giant Step (1959)

Directed by Philip Leacock. Starring Johnny Nash, Frederick O’Neal, Beah Richards, Estelle Hemsley, Ruby Dee, Pauline Meyers, Royce Wallace, Frances Foster, Frank Killmond, Sherman Raskin.

Ungainly, overearnest coming-of-ager with pop singer Nash (later of “I Can See Clearly Now” fame) in over his head trying to express the bottled-anger, naïveté, and rebellion of a black youth in a white, middle-class neighborhood. Aimless and overwrought, with one major event handled in such a shoddy fashion that it almost feels like a sick joke, and an early classroom scene being described rather than shown for no apparent reason. Its stage origins are never in question thanks to the flat photography and presentation, and the perceptive qualities in the dialogue drain away sometimes due to the awkward formalism. In the archetypal sassy-but-comforting granny role, Hemsley struts her stuff well enough to overcome the limitations of the role; it’s something of a minor triumph that she can keep on being blithely amusing even after declaring that Hitler was right about Polish people! Burt Lancaster is listed as an executive producer.

42/100