Claudine (PG)

★★★ "Well directed by John Berry, this engaging drama is beautifully played by Diahann Carroll (who was nominated for a best actress Oscar), James Earl Jones and an excellent cast of youngsters." ~ Radio Times.

In an attempt to counter the far-fetched excesses of the blaxploitation cycle popular at the time, Claudine takes as its focus the day-to-day struggles of a single black mother and her working-class family in Harlem.

Scripted by Lester Pine and Tina Pine, the writers behind A Man Called Adam (1966), the 1974 film - now with a 4k restoration - is driven by a powerful, Oscar nominated, central performance from Diahann Carroll, who is ably supported by James Earl Jones. The film also contains a memorable, socially conscious score by Curtis Mayfield with songs such as ‘On and On’ and ‘The Makings of You’ performed by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Claudine was produced by Hannah Weinstein for the Third World Cinema Corporation, a company started by Weinstein and Ossie Davis, amongst others, to promote film roles for black actors and train black film practitioners. Weinstein had previously secretly employed many blacklisted writers as a producer of British television’s Robin Hood in the 1950s.

After Ossie Davis and Melvin van Peebles were unable to take the director’s chair on the project, Claudine was helmed by John Berry, a filmmaker who had been blacklisted in the early 1950s. The film marked his return to American cinema after many years working in Europe and continued his interest in the intersection of race and social class.