Carmen has been filmed a few times since silent days and has proven resilient enough to survive a number of interpretations and variations, from straightforward depictions of the Georges Bizet opera to more oblique versions, and this example was a project from Oscar Hammerstein's updating of the work to feature an all-black cast and rewritten lyrics to reflect both the times and the race of the performers. Originally a stage show, the studio regarded this as a potential moneymaker in the manner of other all-African American musicals such as Cabin in the Sky or Stormy Weather, but while there was plenty of interest in it from the public, it fell victim to copyright claims from the owner of the source opera.
This meant that for around two-and-a-half decades nobody could see it, and for musicals that had a strong afterlife after their initial runs that was unfortunate. Even more unfortunate for Dandridge, a deeply troubled actress and singer whose depression was only exacerbated by her fretting over the chances she had lost because of her skin colour. She was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress in Carmen Jones, but lost to the far more mediocre Grace Kelly turn in The Country Girl, and did not work again in film for years, not many years, but enough to leave her stuck in her doldrums that she never really escaped from until it all became too much and she killed herself in 1965, just forty-two years old.
The common complaint about this version of the theatrical experience was that it was artificial, especially since the cast members doing the singing were by and large not the ones doing the acting. Pearl Bailey was an exception, and that was to her benefit, but there was a little disconnect between seeing Belafonte belt out the high notes that were not his, possibly because his actual singing voice was so distinctive, yet it was not as if this was an unusual practice in bringing songs to the screen, and although the actor's voice was often heard, being dubbed by a more appropriate vocal was by no means unique to director Otto Preminger's approach here. Besides, it was a musical, and they were not exactly known for their incredible realism, so what was more problematic was perhaps the plot the cast were invited to act out: when your story ends up in a dingy store cupboard, you know they should have built to a better climax than that. It was not that much different from the film noirs Preminger had made his name with the decade before, when you boiled it down, and an eccentricity to be frank, maybe it could have been made more visually exciting, but see it for the leading lady and wonder "what if?"
