In his memoir, This Life, Poitier further notes, “The script was a one-dimensional concoction of expatriate jazz musicians living and working in Paris. …it should have been Joanne Woodward and myself, and Paul Newman and Diahann Carroll, as love interests; such unconventional pairings at that time would have made a considerable impact in the business. Then, too, it was rumored…that the original idea called for exactly that kind of imaginative casting, and that United Artists and those responsible for the film felt it would be too revolutionary and backed off, leaving the creative forces no way to raise the material above the level of the commonplace.”

By “creative forces” Poitier no doubt means director Martin Ritt and writer Walter Bernstein, both of whom had long-standing progressive credentials. After working with the Group Theatre and honing his directing chops in the New Deal’s Federal Theatre Project, Ritt had been a successful television director. He was targeted during the 1950s anti-Communist witch-hunt by the right-wing newsletter Counterattack, and subsequently was blacklisted from the television industry for a number of years. When the blacklist hysteria cooled off at the end of the 1950s, Ritt began directing movies. He and Paul Newman formed their own company, Salem Productions, with the explicit purpose of producing socially conscious movies. Ritt directed Newman in Hud, Hombre, Paris Blues, and The Long, Hot Summer. His later films included The Great White Hope, Sounder, and Norma Rae, all of which dealt with controversial social and political issues.

Walter Bernstein had been a member of the Young Communist League as a youth, and had many other left-wing affiliations. He was a writer for Columbia Studios before being blacklisted from the film industry in 1951. Paris Blues was the first Ritt-Bernstein collaboration. They later teamed to make The Front, starring Woody Allen in a dramedy about the Hollywood blacklist.

In Paris Blues, Ritt and Bernstein preserve the book’s key subject matter — racism and Eddie’s conflict around whether to stay in Paris or return to the United States.

Eddie (to Connie): “Here in Paris, I’m Eddie Cook, musician. Period. Not Eddie Cook, Negro musician. I don’t have to prove anything else.”

Connie: “Like what?”

Eddie: “Like, because I’m Negro I’m different. Or because I’m Negro I’m not different. I’m different, I’m not different, I don’t have to prove either case. Can you understand that?”

Connie: “There isn’t a place on earth that isn’t hell for somebody. Some race, some color, some sex.”

Eddie: “For me, Paris is just fine.”

Connie: Eddie, you’re wrong. I’m not denying what you feel…but things are much better than they were five years ago, and they’re gonna still be better next year. And not because Negroes come to Paris. But because Negroes stay home, and with millions of white people they work to make things better for everybody in America.”

However, this issue now plays a secondary role to Ram’s similar, but much less interesting, concern: should he stay in Paris to pursue a serious musical career, or return to the U.S. with Lillian and become a white-picket-fence-hubby? Ram’s dilemma often seems awkward and inauthentic, showing itself to be what it probably was: a forced attempt to give Paul Newman a meaningful character arc.

Typical of 1960’s liberal filmmaking, the black characters in Paris Blues are presented as decent, smart, and sober, while the white characters, unburdened by the screenwriter’s need to be race-respectful, get the fun, quirky, lines.

Ram: This romance is doomed.

Lillian: Why?

Ram: You get up too early.

In contrast, Eddie and Connie’s relationship is essentially sweet, their dialogue earnest. Their romance also serves as an excuse for the obligatory — and interminable! — lovers’ stroll through Paris. The bridges over the Seine, the steps at Montmartre, the mid-day rain shower, the starry-eyed couple arm-in-arm….somewhere along the way, this film about the coolest of the cool – jazz musicians, hip improvisers – goes square.

In the end, Eddie decides to marry Connie and give the U.S. another try, while Ram opts to stay in Paris.

Although the film is uneven, Paris Blues is notable as a well-meaning movie that deals with a serious subject — racism — at a time when most Hollywood movies shied away from such topics. And, give credit where credit is due to a group of talented actors and filmmakers who made a movie about a theme, characters, and historical moment rarely touched in cinema.

It would take another 25 years before the subject of expatriate African American jazz musicians would be tackled again in film. And it took a Frenchman to do it. In Bertrand Tavernier’s 1986 Round Midnight, real life saxophonist Dexter Gordon plays Dale Turner, a gifted but self-destructive musician working in Paris in the 1950s. This film is significantly darker and grittier than Paris Blues, its approach to the material a continent and several filmmaking eras away from the earlier movie. Both films provide a glimpse into jazz history, through the distinct lens of their own time, place, and cultural vantage point.

(Eve Goldberg is a writer and filmmaker.  Her articles have appeared in Hippocampus, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The Reading Room and AmericanPopularCulture.com.  Her film and television credits include Emmy-nominated Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, and Cover Up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair.  Her first book, Hollywood Hang Ten, is a mystery novel set in 1963 Los Angeles. See a sampling of her short films on her web site at https://eve-goldberg.com/  )