Canada Lee

Scott Carter is a skilled doctor - and a man without prospects. Rejection letters from hospitals pile up. His young wife is pregnant with their first child. Unable to land a job because of his race, Scott (Mel Ferrer) decides. "For one year of my life," he says, "I'm going to be a white man." That one year becomes two, then 10, then 20. But it's still only a matter of time before Scott's secret is out and he confronts racism in the New Hampshire town he's served for decades. A light-skinned black family passes for white in this powerful, fact-based tale. Produced by Louis de Rochemont, one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the late 1940s, Lost Boundaries belongs to a forward-looking cluster of postwar films that declared war on society's ills. Like Boomerang!, Pinky, Gentleman's Agreement and others of the era, it resonates with conviction, proving great issues are the stuff of great filmmaking.

Until the House Un-American Activities Committee horned in, several postwar Hollywood films dealt with touchy "liberal" subject matter. Lost Boundaries stars Mel Ferrer as a light-skinned African-American, whose family is "passing" in an all-white New England community. When the truth comes out, the more bigoted neighbors demand the expulsion of Ferrer and his family. Considered pretty potent stuff in 1949, Lost Boundaries appears fairly conventional today, especially in its reluctance to cast a genuine black actor in the lead. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a ship of Americans and Britons is sunk by a missile from a German U-boat during WWII, the survivors must cope with the elements - and each other. Unfortunately, they know nothing about navigation or survival at sea, and quickly begin to turn on each other. So when they pull the Nazi U-boat Captain out of the sea they have no choice but to trust his superior survival skills, even though the course he is steering is back to his boat, and he is taking them as prisoners of war.

When a ship of Americans and Britons is sunk by a missile from a German U-boat during WWII, the survivors must cope with the elements - and each other. Unfortunately, they know nothing about navigation or survival at sea, and quickly begin to turn on each other. So when they pull the Nazi U-boat Captain out of the sea they have no choice but to trust his superior survival skills, even though the course he is steering is back to his boat, and he is taking them as prisoners of war.