Singer Harry Belafonte, of The Banana Boat Song fame and other popular ditties, was 85 when Susanne Rostock made this slightly hagiographic film about him. But it seems he deserves the praise, since his career gave him an effective platform to address the rights of black performers, which he has done tenaciously throughout his life. He helped force the Kennedy brothers to listen to what Martin Luther King was saying, and was tireless in pushing the Democrats towards the goal of actually getting a black man into the White House.
Belafonte came from very poor beginnings in New York, and Rostock’s excellent archive footage traces a career that not only contained the songs with which we are familiar but also included many folk songs from the Jamaica he was sent to as a child.
An admirable man, and an admirable film about him.
