A Raisin in the Sun 1961 123movies

Watch: A Raisin in the Sun 1961 123movies, Full Movie Online – Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall….
Plot: Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.
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Ratings:

	8.0/10 Votes: 8,794
	90% | RottenTomatoes
	87/100 | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 97 Popularity: 7.19 | TMDB

Reviews:

Incredible acting
When you rent A Raisin in the Sun, get ready for some seriously intense acting and a beautiful script. Usually, when a film is made of a play, one or two members of the Broadway cast are used, and the rest is filled with Hollywood names. In Daniel Petrie’s adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s play, almost everyone in the 1959 original Broadway cast reprised their roles on film. And, while Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil, as well as the direction and play itself, were nominated for Tonys, the film was universally ignored at the Oscars.

In a small apartment that doesn’t even have a bathroom, there lives the widowed Claudia McNeil, her son Sidney Poitier, her daughter Diana Sands, and Sidney’s wife Ruby Dee. They’re all dissatisfied with their lives, but each family member deals with their disappointment and frustration in different ways. Sidney throws his heart into untrustworthy schemes, Diana is studying to become a doctor to better herself, Ruby keeps her head down as she tries to get through each day, and Claudia tries to continue mothering her grown children.

Unlike most plays, A Raisin in the Sun isn’t overly wordy, and not a single moment is boring. It’s terribly sad, but still a bit optimistic at times, and very thought-provoking. Perhaps my favorite element, besides the superbly heart-wrenching performances of Sidney and Claudia, is the character development in the script. Every single person in the story is three-dimensional, and no one is a villain or a saint. Audiences can understand their thought-processes and motivations, and it’s nearly impossible to choose a favorite character. Depending on how well you handle sad stories, this might be a staple you add to your collection, or it might be a film you watch only once but remember forever.

Rights of Dreams
RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961), was like THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1945) and CITIZEN KANE (1941). It was always on BILL KENNEDY AT THE MOVIES on Channel Nine here in Detroit. While my Father was putting down drop cloths and painting our rooms upstairs, I would skip downstairs in and out of the basement and catch snippets of it here and there between glasses of Kool-Aid and tuna fish sandwiches and playing Baseball. Of course it was considered a classic back then, and rightfully so. But being nothing but a kid back then, my idols were Jesse Owens and Willie Mays, and RAISIN IN THE SUN was too much Big Mama and indoorsy Drawing Room drama for somebody like me who simply wanted more Baseball.

As I grew older, I appreciated more what RAISIN IN THE SUN had to offer in illuminating the African American experience. Sort of in the same way I grew to appreciate MACBETH and HAMLET and JULIUS CEASAR, and stopped wondering why these dramas were on television so often. Forgive me if I still see RAISIN as essentially a woman’s play, written masterfully by a woman with three of the strongest characters being women. Claudia McNeil as Lena Younger, is a paragon and archetype of feminine strength. She was a great actress, easily the equal of Ethel Barrymore or Margaret Rutherford, and her talent would have probably been more greatly appreciated in a wider diversity of roles. We knew Ruby Dee from her stint as Harriet Tubman on THE GREAT ADVENTURE; an American History Anthology TV series of the early 1960’s, along with her husband Ossie Davis. She too was a great actress in films like NO WAY OUT (1950), where her husband Ossie Davis again starred with her alongside Sidney Poitier. I also remember her more vividly from THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY, naturally because it was all about Baseball and a Black Man breaking into the Major Leagues. But hers was as distinguished a career as many actresses thanks to she and her husband’s association with Spike Lee where they did some of their best work. I find it hard to imagine anyone playing Ruth Younger better than Ruby Dee. Finally, there is Diana Sands, who plays Beneatha Younger. She was an acclaimed Tony and Emmy nominated actress, noted for her work on stage and in film.

Now, I realize as I write this, we are talking about three Queens of Drama, as much as I was considering three Kings of Comedy when I did my review for HARLEM NIGHTS (1989). Naturally, posterity recognizes their work as the beleaguered women of the Younger Family. Claudia McNeil as Lena Younger, the matriarchal foundation of the family, upholding its time honored traditions and workable truths. Ruby Dee as Ruth Younger, feeling the walls closing in on her and simply wanting more room and sunlight than their cramped apartment on the south side of Chicago has to offer. Diana Sands as Beneatha Younger, an intelligent young woman determined to become a Doctor, who has her choice between two suitors, one whom she considers an imitation White Man and the other who fancies himself an African Prince destined to sweep her away across the ocean to the Motherland.

That’s not to say that the men are any slouches in this drama. Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee Younger brings a catlike physical grace to the role that is a plus for this cinematic offspring of the play. This Chicago chauffeur with his dreams of running his own business has a visual dynamism that almost leaps out of the screen. Ivan Dixon as Joseph Asagi, is dignified and reserved as he offers his own oblique observations on how oppression and exploitation has arrested the development of this African American family. Louis Gossett Jr., as George Murchison plying also for the hand of Beneatha with Asagi, seems SHORT, and petty and mean, and you have to look close to see that he is actually taller than Sidney Poitier at 6 feet and four inches! Quite a feat for an actor. Joel Fluellen as Bobo also delivers as he poignantly conveys, along with Poitier, the anguish of Black Men attempting to make a mark for themselves in a world where all the rules are written by those who consider them nothing more than hired help.

I was fortunate enough to get a documentary record of RAISIN IN THE SUN when I was in my twenties. At that time, for the stage version that these records recorded, Ossie Davis played the lead role of Walter Lee Younger. I studied it the way you would study SPORTSMANLIKE DRIVING or the Bible. One thing I realized was that on the stage the human voice is the prime carrier wave of the emotional content of the drama, whereas in cinema it is physical motion. I can still hear Ossie Davis’ voice thrilling and arousing the audience in that documentary record, just as I can vividly see Sidney Poitier spilling off the table in his living room, overcome with the intoxication of pride as he celebrates the greatest of the times.

Special notice should also go to John Fiedler as Mark Lindner, who bears the cross as the white token in a drama for once. Representing the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, he comes across convincingly as a nervous, frightened little man, who wants no trouble in his neighborhood, and timorously offers the Youngers a financial way out of his discomfort. You will remember him, perhaps, as just as effective and even brilliant in his turn as one of the jurors in TWELVE ANGRY MEN (1957).

There have been other film versions of this play, and you would probably do well to study them all for purposes of comparison and contrast. As for myself, I’ll park this one as a keeper where Lorraine Hansberry has done the screenplay and provided the camera instructions for David Susskind. This is a worthy story of an African American Family making their Stride Toward Freedom and discovering what it means to be Young, Gifted and Black.

Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 2 hr 8 min (128 min)
Budget 1500000
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated Approved
Genre Drama
Director Daniel Petrie
Writer Lorraine Hansberry
Actors Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee
Country United States
Awards Nominated for 2 BAFTA 3 wins & 7 nominations total
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Mono (RCA Sound Recording)
Aspect Ratio 1.85 : 1
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length N/A
Negative Format N/A
Cinematographic Process N/A
Printed Film Format N/A