Claudine a movie that was released in 1974 during the explosion of Blaxploitation movies of the 70s. This movie is a lot tamer and does not include a super brother/sister who must save the day. This movie tells the story of the struggle that a single mother with children has to face with love and bringing up her children. The cast included Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs. Diahann Carroll was not initially chosen as the lead and only took the part after the original lead actress Diana Sands whom was dying of cancer asked her to take the roll.
The movie spoke about women with children by different fathers is/was not always the stereotype of a loose woman. When watching lead character Claudine Price struggle with her 6 children and having to use public assistance you understand that she wanted what most women want to be loved appreciated and care for her children. Her love interest in the movie is sanitation worker named "Roop" Rupert Marshall played to perfection by James Earl Jones. We watch as he struggles with the fact that he loves this woman but isn’t sure he wants to take the added responsibility of her children. We also see Claudine's oldest child Charles played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs who as a member of the Black Panther like activist group who is fighting for social change views his mother with love and sometimes disdain for having so many children and believes that her new man will get her pregnant and leave as all the previous men in her life have.
Another aspect of this powerful movie is the "hoops" that Claudine needed to jump through to keep the much needed public assistance and to go as far as needing to hide any gifts that she receives as the dreaded public assistance worker would come and deduct the amount of any gift from the assistance that she gets. You can’t really say it has a happy ending as it is open ended. You see the ending and wonder if they were able to make it work in the long run. For her performance as "Claudine" Diahann Carroll was nominated for an Oscar in 1975. I caught this movie as a youth and before buying the VCR tape and now DVD watched it whenever it came on. My guess is a lot of women have seen or heard about this movie. For everyone else please seek and watch this treasure
KEEP IT OLDSKOOL
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